After Hemant Soren Went To Jail, His Younger Brother Basant Soren Becomes Minister As Jharkhand CM Expands His Cabinet

A couple of weeks after becoming Jharkhand Chief Minister, Champai Soren expanded his cabinet on Friday (16 February) by inducting eight MLAs into the cabinet -- five from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and three from Congress.

The Congress MLAs to take the oath are Rameshwar Uranv, Banna Gupta and Badal Patralekh, while from the JMM Mithilesh Thakur, Deepak Barua, Basant Soren, Hafizul Hasan and Bebi Devi took the oath.

Basant Soren is a notable name as he is the son of the former Jharkhand CM and JMM president Shibu Soren and the younger brother of another former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, who was arrested on 31 January.

Basant Soren is MLA from Dumka and a first-time minister. He was elected to the Jharkhand Assembly by defeating BJP candidate and former Minister Lewis Marandi in the 2020 by-election.

Hemant Soren won two seats in the 2019 elections. He decided to represent Barhait, from where he has been an MLA since 2014 and vacated the other seat of Dumka, which his brother won subsequently.

Earlier on 2 February, Alamgir Alam of Congress and Satyanand Bhokta of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had taken the oath along with Champai Soren as a trailer of Jharkhand cabinet expansion.