'No tribal leader from Jharkhand allowed to complete full term as CM'

Dhanbad: In a veiled attack on the opposition BJP, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Saturday said that no tribal leader from the state was allowed to remain in the CM post for more than three years in the past two decades.

Referring to himself as a "Jharkhandi", the JMM leader also alleged that the opposition party is "hatching a conspiracy to remove" him by levelling "false charges".

“First chief minister of Jharkhand, Babulal Marandi, was removed before completing three years. Later, Arjun Munda was also not allowed to remain in the post for more than three years.

"But, at the same time, a Chhattisgarhi was made chief minister and allowed to complete a full five-year term,” Soren said without taking the name of the BJP.

The JMM leader was apparently referring to former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das who has his ancestral village at Boirdih in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district.

Das, a five-time BJP MLA, had lost to Saryu Roy, who fought as an independent candidate from the Jamshedpur East seat in the 2019 assembly elections.

Soren, who was addressing the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s (JMM) 51st foundation day rally at Dhanbad Golf Ground, said that the opposition has "adopted a double-standard policy".

“If it can make a Gujarati as CM in Gujarat, a Maharashtrian in Maharashtra and a Bihari in Bihar, why not a Jharkhandi as CM in Jharkhand,” he said.

JMM executive president also said that "since a Jharkhandi has become the chief minister, the opposition party is hatching a conspiracy to remove" him by levelling "false charges".

“But as long as the Shibu Soren family is alive, no plan of the opposition in Jharkhand will succeed," he said.

Political temperatures had risen in the state last year over the Election Commission’s opinion on a plea seeking Soren’s disqualification as an MLA for allegedly violating electoral law.

The CM also alleged that "whenever he makes a welfare policy for locals or tribal people, it is blocked by calling it unconstitutional".

Speaking over the indefinite strike of contractual health employees and other health workers in the state, he said, “The Centre has left them in lurch. But the state government is concerned about their problems and will do the needful in this regard soon." JMM supremo Shibu Soren also addressed the rally and stressed on improvement of education and agriculture.