With senior JMM leader Champai Soren turning rebel and targeting the party leadership for “humiliating” him and that his three options would be open — to retire, start a new party, or join another party — all eyes are on the next moves of the 67-year-old former Jharkhand chief minister amid growing buzz that he would switch to the BJP. The crisis has gripped the JMM less than two months after Champai handed back the reins of the Jharkhand government to his predecessor and JMM executive president Hemant Soren, the son of party patriarch Shibu Soren. Jharkhand is also headed for the Assembly polls by the end of this year. Days after Hemant walked out of jail after being granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in the money laundering case on June 28, Champai had to step down as the CM to enable the former to replace him. Tension has since been simmering in their camps over the transition of power. While Champai eventually gave up the CM’s chair, sources said it did not happen without hiccups. “He (Champai) is a mass leader and not a discarded politician. He felt disheartened that he was asked to give up the CM’s chair,” sources had told The Indian Express. Hours after landing in Delhi on Sunday, Champai, currently a minister in Hemant Cabinet, went public with his complaint against the JMM leadership, accusing it of allegedly humiliating him while forcing his ouster as the CM despite his long association with the party. His move triggered a strong reaction from CM Hemant, who accused the BJP of “poaching its MLAs” and “dividing society”. A veteran of the Jharkhand statehood movement and a close aide of Shibu Soren or “Guruji”, Champai stepped up to fill the vacuum after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Hemant in February in a case of alleged money laundering. Before becoming the CM, Champai held several key ministerial portfolios such as welfare and transport. Born to a family of farmers in Jilingagoda village in Saraikela-Kharsawan district, Champai grew up in poverty and joined the movement for a separate Jharkhand quite young. “In his mind, he was always drawn to the welfare of the people of the village, that is Adivasis. That is one of the reasons he did not study after Class 10 and immersed himself in the Jharkhand movement,” said a person who has known the JMM leader for a long time. As the statehood movement picked pace in the 1970s — the JMM was formed in 1973 — Champai Soren, often referred to as the “Tiger of Kolhan” by his supporters, started mobilising people for the cause. Once in the 1990s, he led an agitation at the gates of Tata Steel in Jamshedpur to push for the rightful demand of unorganised labourers, said people close to him. In 1993, a case was registered against him under sections of the Explosive Substances Act. In his Election Commission affidavit from 2019, the JMM veteran described the case as a “political one”. He said, “The case is a political case during the JMM movement to make the economic blockade successful. The case relates to an attempt to destroy Railways property and an explosion of a bomb.” Champai started his electoral politics in 1995, winning the Saraikela Assembly seat as an Independent. He lost the seat to the BJP five years later but has won all four elections since. One of the reasons, according to his supporters, is that he remains approachable, helping out people in need. The JMM leader’s detractors say that his governance is “not impeccable”. One of them said that as welfare minister he fell short of delivering on ensuring that scholarships from his department reach students in need of financial aid, and several gaps remain. There are also various problems involving the Adityapur Industrial area in his constituency, said a JMM leader. “We have seen issues of extortion done by men around him,” alleged the leader. During his tenure as the CM, Champai steered the JMM through the Lok Sabha election campaign, in which the party-led coalition won six seats. The JMM got three seats on its own while its key ally Congress won two. The BJP won seven seats, while its ally All Jharkhand Students’ Union bagged one. However, the NDA lost all the five ST-reserved seats to the JMM-led coalition, illustrating the base that the ruling party has among tribals in the state that was nurtured by several leaders, including Champai.
