RANCHI: Dishom Guru Shibu Soren, who was admitted to Sir Gagaram Hospital in New Delhi due to prolonged illness, breathed his last on Monday. Shibu Soren's journey from a simple tribal up to occupying the chair of Jharkhand Chief Minister was quite challenging and full of ups and downs.
Soren led the JMM as its president for 38 years until April 2025, when he was replaced by his son and the current Chief Minister Hemant Soren, making him the party’s founding patron. Despite being a mass leader, Shibu Soren could not complete any of the constitutional posts as power always slipped off from his hands.
After the formation of Jharkhand on November 15, 2000, Shibu Soren, who was a Rajya Sabha member at that time, was quite hopeful that he would get the key post of Chief Minister, but it went to Babulal Marandi of BJP. Later, Arjun Munda replaced Babulal Marandi after domicile row erupted in the state.
Meanwhile, as no party had majority, manipulation continued in Jharkhand politics, during which, there were three such occasions when Shibu Soren got the privilege of sitting on the Chief Ministerial post. But Guruji could not play long innings, and the chair kept on slipping off from his hands.
Soren served as Jharkhand’s chief minister three times—briefly from March 2 to 11, 2005; from August 27, 2008 to January 12, 2009; and from December 30, 2009 to May 31, 2010. Each tenure was cut short by unstable coalition dynamics.
On March 2, 2005, Shibu Soren got the opportunity for the first time to become chief minister of Jharkhand. But in just 11 days, he had to resign from the post on March 12, 2005, as he did not have the support of adequate numbers of MLAs in the Jharkhand Assembly.
Then on August 28, 2008, Shibu Soren became Chief Minister for the second time, but had to leave the chair after just 4 months and 21 days, on January 12, 2009. Then again, he was given a third chance to become the Chief Minister on December 30, 2009. This time too, he lost power after five months on May 31, 2010.
After that, he could never return to Jharkhand politics. Interestingly, Shibu Soren was the first sitting chief minister who lost the by-elections in January 2009. After taking over as chief minister, Shibu Soren contested the by-election from the Tamar seat, dominated by Munda tribals. Raja Peter of the Jharkhand Party proved to be the dark horse and defeated Shibu Soren by a margin of 8,972 votes. Shibu Soren lost a key assembly by-election he needed to win to remain in his post, and hence he had to resign once again.
Shibu Soren was also elected to the Lok Sabha eight times and served as a Rajya Sabha MP for two terms. As a key figure in the UPA government, he served as the Union Coal Minister from May 23 to July 24, 2004; November 27, 2004 to March 2, 2005; and January 29 to November 2006.
Not only the post of chief minister, Shibu Soren also could not enjoy the post of union coal minister for long and had to resign after being named in the Chirudih massacre case. During his tenure as coal minister, the 30-year-old Chirudih massacre case came to light, and there was a ruckus in the House, leaving Prime Minister Manmohan Singh under pressure.
Due to fear of his arrest, Shibu Soren had gone underground, and the prime minister was not able to contact him. Therefore, on July 24, 2004, Shibu Soren sent his resignation to the Prime Minister through fax.
However, after getting bail in the Chirudih case in September 2004, he was again made the coal minister on November 17, 2004. He did not hold this post for long either.
On November 28, 2006, Delhi's Tees Hazari court convicted him guilty in the murder case of his personal secretary Shashinath Jha. With this, he had to leave the ministerial post again.