RANCHI: Following a resounding victory in the Jharkhand Assembly elections, caretaker Chief Minister Hemant Soren, accompanied by his wife Kalpana Soren, met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday and extended an invitation for him to attend his swearing-in ceremony, set to take place at Morhabadi Ground in Ranchi on 28th November.
The Prime Minister's Office later shared photographs of Soren's meeting with PM Modi. After the meeting, Soren posted on X, confirming that he had invited the Prime Minister to the oath-taking ceremony. He wrote in Hindi: “Met Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji in Delhi today and invited him to attend the swearing-in ceremony of ‘Abua Sarkar’ (our government) on 28th November.”
Soren, a leader of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), led the INDIA bloc to a decisive victory over the BJP-led alliance.
Earlier, the couple had also invited several prominent political figures, including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Arvind Kejriwal, MK Stalin, Mamata Banerjee, and Kanimozhi, among others.
The swearing-in ceremony at Morhabadi Ground is expected to be a show of strength for the INDIA bloc, much like the event held at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Sources indicate that the alliance is considering a ministerial formula, proposing one ministerial post for every five MLAs. If this formula is agreed upon, JMM would receive six ministerial posts, Congress three, and RJD one.
Several new faces may be included in the Cabinet, as four ministers—Mithilesh Thakur, Baidyanath Ram, Baby Devi, and Banna Gupta—lost their seats this time. Satyanand Bhokta, a former minister from the RJD quota, did not contest the elections. His daughter-in-law, Rashmi Prakash, contested from the Chatra Assembly seat but was unsuccessful.
In the election results announced on 23rd November, the JMM-led INDIA bloc secured 56 seats out of 81, surpassing the magic number required to form the government. JMM alone won 34 seats. In contrast, the BJP alliance managed to secure only 24 seats, falling short of a majority by 13 seats.
Although the JMM won more seats, the BJP's vote share stood at 33.20%, nearly 10 percent higher than JMM's vote share of 23.47%.