From humble farmer to J’khand CM: The rise of Champai Soren
Our Correspondent
RANCHI: Champai Soren, the new Chief Minister of Jharkhand, embodies a remarkable story of resilience and rise from humble beginnings. He was born into a family deeply engaged in agricultural farming. Son of Simal Soren, he was educated in a government school and studied till 10th grade. Soren’s political journey began in the 1990s, coinciding with the Jharkhand movement demanding a separate state carved out of Bihar. He joined the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). A prominent tribal leader, the 67-year-old Champai Soren was serving in the Hemant Soren government as Transport Minister of the state. Before entering politics, Champai Soren was engaged in agricultural activities with his father in a remote village in Jharkhand’s Seraikela-Kharsawan district. His active participation in the Jharkhand movement and strong advocacy saw him earning the moniker of “Jharkhand Tiger” for his contribution to the long fight for the creation of a separate state in the 1990s. Jharkhand was created from the southern part of Bihar in 2000.
Considered a loyalist of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha president Shibu Soren, Champai became the leader of the JMM legislative party after Hemant Soren’s resignation and later arrest by the ED on the night of January 31.
He is the seventh person to become Jharkhand’s chief minister and the third from the JMM to reach that post after Shibu Soren and his son Hemant.
He began his political career by getting elected as an independent MLA through a by-election from the Saraikela seat in undivided Bihar in 1991.
Four years later, he contested the Assembly polls from the seat on JMM ticket and defeated the BJP’s Panchu Tudu. In the 2000 Assembly elections, the first one held in the state, he was defeated from the same constituency by the BJP’s Anant Ram Tudu.
He regained the seat in 2005 by defeating the BJP candidate by a margin of only 880 votes. Champai Soren won the subsequent elections in 2009, 2014 and 2019.
He served as a cabinet minister in the BJP government headed by Arjun Munda between September 2010 to January 2013.
When Hemant Soren formed his second government in the state in 2019, Champai Soren became the Minister of Food and Civil Supplies and Transport.
