Jharkhand Mukti Morcha executive president Hemant Soren was on Thursday sworn in as the chief minister of Jharkhand after Champai Soren resigned from the post months before the assembly elections.
Today is the 4th of July. On January 31st, from the same place, I conveyed to you all how the opposition has conspired against me. He was successful. For five months they tried to keep me inside the jail in various ways. We took the legal route and people supported us,” Soren said before taking the oath.
Soren met Governor CP Radhakrishnan at the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi on Wednesday and formally staked his claim to form the government, after his predecessor Champai Soren resigned.
“A few days ago I was made the Chief Minister and I got the responsibility of the state. After Hemant Soren came back, our alliance took this decision, and we chose Hemant Soren as our leader. Now, I have resigned from the post of Chief Minister,” Champai Soren had said.
Before his swearing-in, Hemant Soren wrote on X, “Thank you Governor, the anti-democratic conspiracy by the opposition has begun. Satya Mayo won.”
Champai Soren took over as chief minister on a temporary basis on February 2, after the JMM executive resigned before being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case linked to a land scam.
Soren, 48, was granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court on June 28 after spending five months in jail. “The court has prima facie said that he is not guilty of the crime and there is no possibility of the petitioner's guilt if he is on bail,” Soren's senior counsel Arunabh Chaudhary told PTI.
Hemant Soren's return as chief minister will boost the JMM, which won three seats in the tribal-majority state of Jharkhand in the Lok Sabha elections.

In 2019, the JMM contested the assembly elections along with the Congress and Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and won a comfortable majority with forty-eight seats in the 81-member House.
In the state elections, JMM won 30 seats, while Congress and RJD won 16 and one seat respectively.