Jharkhand Governor C P Radhakrishnan Friday administered oath to eight ministers, including former Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s brother and Dumka MLA Basant Soren and Chaibasa MLA Deepak Birua. With the addition of the two new faces, the Jharkhand Government expanded its cabinet to 10 ministers. Before the trust vote on February 5, the Raj Bhavan had administered oaths to Congress’s Alamgir Alam and RJD’s Satyanand Bhokta as cabinet ministers and Champai Soren as the CM. Champai Soren kept key departments like home and personnel, for himself in addition to those not allocated to other legislators. Basant Soren was given charge of road construction, building construction and water resources. The six other cabinet ministers are Congress’s Rameshwar Oraon, Banna Gupta, Badal Patralekh; and JMM’s Mithilesh Thakur, Hafizul Hasan, and Baby Devi. Basant Soren was elected MLA after he defeated BJP’s Louis Marandi by a margin of 6,842 votes in a bypoll in November 2020. Birua won the Chaibasa seat against BJP’s J B Tubid by over 26,000 votes in the 2019 Assembly polls. Sources said a few ministerial berths will remain the same as it was under Hemant Soren. After the ceremony, minister from JMM Hafizul Hasan told reporters: “We will work on whatever portfolio we get. We have taken an oath, but this is an oath of sorrow. We have to do more and more. Our leader is in jail because of the central government’s ‘hitler shahi’ and we have to struggle more. Our workers will be in the field.” JMM’s Mithilesh Thakur said: “Our new CM has resolved all the promises made by Hemant Soren to the public.” However, at least 10 Congress MLAs did not attend the ceremony. Sources said they were unhappy with the cabinet composition and wanted more fresh faces. Congress President Rajesh Thakur said: “We will talk the situation out.” With PTI Inputs
