Alleging that Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who faces imminent arrest in a money-laundering case, plans to resign and install his wife Kalpana Soren as his successor, the Opposition BJP intends to meet Governor C.P. Radhakrishnan and ask him to take legal advice regarding the situation. On Tuesday, Mr. Soren met the State government’s top lawyer as well as his party partiarch before calling his coalition’s legislators for a Wednesday meeting.
Mr. Soren has failed to appear before the Enforcement Directorate in the case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, despite six summons between August and December. The ED had summoned Mr. Soren for a seventh time on December 29, asking him to decide a date, time, and place for questioning within seven days.
The buzz in the State’s political circles is that Mr. Soren may follow the example of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, former CM of the neighbouring State of Bihar, who had anointed his wife Rabri Devi as CM in July 1997, after an arrest warrant was issued against him in the multi-crore fodder scamcase. Ms. Devi went on to rule the State till 2005.
