The Enforcement Directorate on January 31 arrested Hemant Soren in a land scam case soon after he resigned as Jharkhand Chief Minister. The resignation came after the ED officials questioned him for more than seven hours at his official residence in Ranchi. Jharkhand Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan has accepted his resignation.
He has challenged his arrest in the Jharkhand High Court. The hearing will take place on February 1. Many tribal bodies issued a call for a bandh on February 1 to protest against the arrest.
Senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and Transport Minister Champai Soren was elected leader of the Legislature Party soon after Mr. Hemant Soren’s resignation. Mr. Champai Soren is a five-time MLA from Seraikela. and in the 1990s, he actively took part in the movement for the creation of a separate State of Jharkhand along with JMM patron Shibu Soren.
“Hemantji has resigned and we have submitted the letter of support to the Governor to stake claim to form the government. At present we have 43 MLAs and four are in hospital. We have the support of 47 MLAs. The Governor is yet to give the time to form the government. We have submitted the letter with the signature of 43 MLAs,” Mr. Champai Soren said after coming out of the Raj Bhavan.
To form the government, the ruling alliance needs 41 MLAs.
Earlier in the day, members of the JMM-led alliance tried to meet the Governor to seek a parade of MLAs before him to prove the majority, but the Governor refused to meet them. “We are requesting the Governor to allow Mr. Champai to take oath as Chief Minister as we have elected him as the Legislature Party leader,” said Banna Gupta, a Cabinet Minister.
JMM MLA Mithilesh Thakur said, “We will not allow President’s rule to be imposed in Jharkhand because we have the numbers to form the government. Ever since we formed the government, the BJP has been trying hard to dethrone the government of our leader.”
After a half an hour meeting with the Governor, Mr. Hemant Soren was directly taken to the ED office in Ranchi.
FIR against ED
Mr. Hemant Soren on January 31 lodged an FIR against the ED officials at the SC/ST police station in Ranchi in which he named four ED officials — Kapil Raj, Deovrat Jha, Anupam Kumar and Aman Patel.
In the FIR, the JMM leader described himself as a member of the Scheduled Tribe, stressing that the search on his New Delhi premises was to harass and malign his name and his entire community.
“The purported search was done without my notice nor under my presence on January 29, 2024 at New Delhi by the above-named persons. My family members and I have suffered and experienced immense mental, psychological and emotional harm because of the act committed by the above-named persons and unknown others who are not members of any SC or ST,” Mr. Hemant Soren said in the letter.
In the FIR, he has also dismissed the reports of seizure of car and cash from his New Delhi premises.
“I have come to learn from the reports in the electronic media that the above-named persons have leaked selective misinformation that a blue BMW car seized from the said premises belongs to me and huge sums of illicit case belonging to me was found. I am not the owner of a BMW car and nor I own any illicit cash. They have done it intentionally to humiliate me in public,” Mr. Hemant Soren said.
A team of ED officials visited Mr. Hemant Soren’s Delhi residence at Shanti Niketan on January 29 for questioning. However, he was not found at his residence and remained traceless for 32 hours before he was spotted in Ranchi on January 30.
On January 20, the ED grilled him for over eight hours at his official residence and recorded his statement, after he skipped eight summons by the agency.
The ED had earlier summoned Mr. Hemant Soren on August 14, August 24, September 9, September 23, October 4, December 12, December 29, and January 13, all which Mr. Hemant Soren skipped.
The case pertains to alleged purchase and sale of tribal land by forging documents between 2020 and 2022.
When Mr. Hemant Soren was being questioned, there was a law and order situation in the State capital Ranchi as workers of the ruling JMM held a protest march near the Chief Minister’s house as well as near the Raj Bhavan.
