Even as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) declared Jharkhand Chief Minister was ‘untraceable’ and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called him an ‘absconder’, he appeared at a party meeting in Ranchi after a day of dramatic events.
The activities of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Jharkhand over the past two years have kept the political temperature in the state high. It is almost as if there are three main actors in the state’s politics right now: the ED, Chief Minister Hemant Soren, and the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — in this order.
On Monday, in a case related to an alleged land scam and money laundering, an ED team reached Soren’s Delhi residence while the latter was on an unscheduled visit to the capital. Even though the officials were unable to meet or interrogate the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader, the team stayed at his house for hours, reportedly going through documents related to the probe, apart from seizing a BMW car and cash worth lakhs of rupees. The BJP has turned this into a major issue, declaring Soren an absconder, while the JMM has strongly opposed the ED’s actions.
After the ED raid, Jharkhand politics reached the boiling point. The JMM and Adivasi organisations hit the streets in support of Soren not just in Ranchi but in the entire state. Section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed near the Raj Bhavan, the CM House, and many other places.
On Tuesday, the political theatre heated up further when the Jharkhand BJP released a poster declaring Soren as absconding and announced a reward of 11,000 rupees for anyone informing of his whereabouts. The party’s youth wing has also filed a missing-persons complaint at the Argora Police Station in Ranchi in another gimmick.
An hour after this dramatic turn of events, the official X (formerly Twitter) account of the Jharkhand CM said that Soren was chairing a meeting of ministers and MLAs of the ruling party at his residence.
It is important to note that the JMM leader, apparently sought by the ED since 7 am on Monday, had definitely arrived in Ranchi by Tuesday morning. As per reports, he had left for Delhi on January 27 in a chartered plane. A leader from a party which is part of the ruling alliance in Jharkhand told Outlook on the condition of anonymity that none of the coalition partners had any idea about why Soren had been to Delhi and confusion prevails among them.
Although the JMM first claimed that Soren had been in Ranchi on a ‘personal visit’, a JMM source told Outlook late on Tuesday that Soren had been in the capital to seek legal advice related to the summons.
Nishikant Dubey, BJP leader and the MP from Jharkhand’ Godda Seat, has trained his guns against the CM and his party. Dubey alleged on X on Tuesday that there were plans to get Soren’s wife Kalpana Soren sworn in as the CM.
Rumours about a possible change in Jharkhand’s leadership have been doing the rounds for almost a month now. They intensified when Sarfaraz Ahmad, the JMM MLA from the Gandey seat, resigned on December 31. At the time, he had told Outlook: “Me and my party are ready to handle any situation, and that is why I have resigned.”
The BJP has alleged that Ahmad had been made to vacate the seat so that the CM’s wife could contest the assembly election from there.
So far, Soren has been sent multiple ED summons for interrogation linked to the alleged land scam and money laundering. However, the CM has failed to appear before the agency. In response to the 10th summon, sent on January 22, Soren gave the date of January 31 for getting questioned. As per reports, the agency could arrest the leader if he is seen as failing to cooperate once again.
A senior JMM leader told Outlook that the leadership change depended on whether the central agency would arrest Soren or not and that the CM would resign only if he was arrested. “In that case, Kalpana Soren or another MLA could be elected as CM,” said the leader.
Notably, Jharkhand's JMM-led ruling coalition is holding a meeting of the bloc's MLAs at Soren's residence in Ranchi. The meeting began around 8 pm. This is the second meeting that Soren has held within 12 hours on Tuesday. The meetings are important as the ED is set to arrive in Ranchi to question Soren on Wednesday.
On August 23, 2023, the ED carried out raids on 32 locations across Jharkhand in relation to a liquor scam. This included a property linked to the son of Jharkhand Finance Minister Rameshwar Oraon.
Earlier on May 6, 2023, the agency had arrested IAS Pooja Singhal, Jharkhand’s mining secretary at the time, in relation to the alleged Jharkhand land scam and related corruption allegations, raiding 25 locations linked to her. Subsequently, the agency also arrested then-chief engineer Virendra Ram and JMM leader and Soren’s aide Pankaj Mishra in a probe linked to alleged illegal mining. The CM had also been interrogated in this case.
As per a report, on May 5-6, 2023, the ED carried out raids on 101 locations across Jharkhand and seized assets worth Rs 157 crore, including massive amounts of cash. Thirty-six officials and leaders including the CM have been interrogated by the agency and 15 are behind bars. As per media reports, in a little over a decade, the ED has attached property worth 1,900 crores in the mineral-rich state. Out of this, around 70 per cent of the legal proceedings have been carried out since the NDA came to power in the centre.