Tribal leader Arjun Munda of the BJP was on Saturday sworn in as Jharkhand’s eighth chief minister in a ceremony attended by a galaxy of senior BJP leaders from across the country and chief ministers of two BJP-ruled states. AJSU leader Sudesh Mahto and JMM leader Hemant Soren also took oath as the two deputy chief ministers.
The swearing-in ceremony, which gave most people in Jharkhand an unmistakable déjà vu, was skipped by BJP national president Nitin Gadkari and party patriarch L.K. Advani reportedly due to internal differences within the party’s top ranks over the propriety of repeating their disastrous past experiment with the JMM. Mr Gadkari, however, sent a message to Mr Munda soon after the ceremony was over, wishing him a successful run in his third tenure as the head of a four-party coalition government.
Governor M.O.H. Farook administered the oath of office and secrecy to the three leaders at the Birsa Mandap on the Raj Bhavan premises, effectively ending the 102-day-old President’s Rule in the state. Notable leaders present at the ceremony included former BJP president Rajnath Singh, national spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad, Uttarakhand chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, senior leaders Yashwant Sinha and S.S. Ahliuwalia.
JMM supremo Sibu Soren, accompanied by his wife Rupi Soren, attended the swearing-in ceremony that marked an extraordinary rise in their son Hemant Soren’s short political career. The junior Soren is a first-term MLA, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha for a few months previously.
Just three hours after taking oath as chief minister for the third time, Mr Munda began work in his new post and chaired a “Cabinet meeting”. The two deputy chief ministers and several senior bureaucrats, including chief secretary A.K. Singh, attended this meeting, which outlined 18 issues to which the new government vowed to pay immediate attention. These issues included release of agriculture insurance money within the next 15 days, taking up pending irrigation projects, speeding up drinking water projects and creating a special cell to monitor MGNREGS.
In a bold decision, Mr Munda decided to put under suspension 40 engineers who had been facing serious charges of corruption and had allegedly amassed property far beyond their known sources of income. “This government will successfully complete its full term. We reached this decision after a lot of considerations and deep thinking. The three leaders (who took oath) have great capabilities to ensure Jharkhand’s development,” said Rajnath Singh.
He denied any differences in the BJP’s top ranks over the decision to begin the party’s second innings ion power in Jharkhand with the JMM, AJSU and the JD(U).