Soren expands Cabinet, picks 4 from Cong among 11 ministers

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Thursday expanded his Cabinet by inducting 11 ministers. Governor Santosh Kumar Gangwar administered the oath at a swearing-in ceremony in Ranchi.

Among the 11 newly inducted ministers, six are from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), four from the Congress and one from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). They are yet to be allocated portfolios.

The JMM MLAs who were sworn in today are Deepak Birua, Ramdas Soren, Sudivya Kumar, Chamra Linda, Yogendra Prasad and Hafizul Hasan.

From the Congress, Mahgama MLA Deepika Pandey Singh, Jamtara MLA Irfan Ansari, Chhatrapur MLA Radhakrishna Kishore and Mandar MLA Shilpi Neha Tirkey joined the Cabinet today.

The RJD, which won four seats, got one ministerial berth. Three-term MLA from the Godda Assembly constituency Sanjay Prasad Yadav took oath as a minister.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation had earlier announced that it would not be part of the Cabinet.

In the Jharkhand elections, of the 81 Assembly seats, JMM-led INDIA bloc won 56 seats whereas National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured 24 seats, less than it had got in the last Assembly elections. The JMM won 34 seats, Congress 16, RJD four seats and the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation two.

In the NDA, the BJP had won 21 seats and one seat each was won by its alliance partners — All Jharkhand Students Union, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Janata Dal (United). The Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha led by Jairam Tiger Mahto had won one seat.

Of the 11 ministers, three are from Scheduled Tribes. Hasan took oath in Urdu while the remaining ministers took oath in Hindi.

Soren himself had taken oath as Chief Minister on November 28.