Ex-Jharkhand CM Champai Soren: 'Won't quit politics, may form a new outfit'

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren on Wednesday said he would not quit politics and may form a new party. "It is a new chapter of my life. I won't quit politics as I have received lots of love and support from my followers. The chapter has closed, I may form a new outfit," the senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader said shortly after he reached his ancestral village Jhilingora in Seraikela-Kharsawan district post midnight on Tuesday. 

Soren was in Delhi earlier this week, reportedly for meeting with some top BJP leaders. However, on Tuesday, he returned to Jharkhand. He said he was firm on his plans after "facing humiliation at the hands of leaders of JMM". 

The heavyweight tribal leader opened up about the events that according to him "forced him to look for an alternative path". In a detailed post on August 18, he said he was appointed as chief minister on January 31, after an unprecedented turn of events. However, he said, the day after Hul Diwas, all his programs for the next two days had been postponed by the party leadership. "On asking, I came to know that a meeting of the legislative party has been called by the coalition on July 3, till then you cannot attend any program as CM." 

"Can there be anything more humiliating in a democracy than a Chief Minister's programs being cancelled by another person?" he wrote in the tweet. Soren asked was to resign after Hemant Soren, facing money-laundering probe by the ED, came out of jail on bail. 

On Tuesday, Soren said that no one from the JMM contacted him. "This is the land of Jharkhand...I have struggled since my student life. I participated in the agitation for a separate Jharkhand state under the leadership of party supremo Shibu Soren," he said. 

The tribal leader is known as "Jharkhand's Tiger" for his contribution to the fight to create a separate state in the 1990s. Jharkhand was carved out of the southern part of Bihar in 2000.

Soren suggested that he was open to forming an alliance. He said he might join hands with any outfit if he gets a like-minded organisation. "I posted what I felt was proper. The entire country is aware of what I thought," he said, referring to his post on August 18. Amid speculations that he might join the BJP, the veteran politician had said he experienced "bitter humiliation" as chief minister, which compelled him to seek an alternative path. 

"After so much humiliation, I was forced to look for an alternative path," Champai Soren had said, alleging that all his government programmes in the first week of July were abruptly cancelled by the party leadership without his knowledge.

Jharkhand will go to polls later this year. 

(With inputs from PTI)