Jailer's Box To Ballot Box: Hemant Soren Scripts 2nd Comeback In A Year

The JMM looks set to not only return to power, but also better its 2019 tally.

New Delhi:

For Hemant Soren, the beginning and end of 2024 could not have been more different. 

Less than a month into the year, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader was taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate in a land scam case and he had made sure he resigned as the Jharkhand chief minister before he was arrested. Now, with a month left in the year, Mr Soren has emerged as the architect of a thumping victory, ensuring that the INDIA alliance remains in power in the state and he gets a second straight term as chief minister. 

The JMM leader also suffered multiple other setbacks in between.

After Mr Soren’s arrest on January 31, his sister-in-law, Sita Soren – the wife of his late brother Durga Soren – joined the BJP in March. She was miffed over alleged moves to make Mr Soren’s wife, Kalpana, the chief minister in his absence and was expelled from the JMM for ‘anti-party’ activities in May.

The former chief minister was then granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in June, five months after his arrest. The court held that, prima facie, he was not guilty and was not likely to commit a similar offence, noting that both conditions for bail under the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act had been met. 

Champai Soren – a close aide of JMM chief Shibu Soren and widely seen as the number three in the party – was appointed the chief minister in Hemant Soren’s absence. Trouble began brewing, however, when the party asked him to resign in July after Mr Soren’s release.

“When the leadership had changed, I was given responsibility. You know the sequence of events. After Hemant Soren came back, we (the coalition) picked him as our leader and I have resigned. I am following the decision taken by the coalition,” an upset Champai Soren had said after resigning in July. 

He joined the BJP a month later, claiming that he had been “humiliated and insulted” and wanted to deliver justice to the people. The BJP also accused the JMM-Congress alliance of allowing “infiltration” in the state, an issue that appeared to be gaining traction among voters. 

Despite all this, and some seat-sharing trouble with allies like the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Mr Soren ensured that his party bettered its tally to a projected 33 this year in the 81-member Assembly, up from 30 in 2019. Good performances from the Congress, RJD and CPI (ML) have taken the ruling coalition’s number to 55, with the BJP-led alliance ahead in only 25 seats.