BJP will be wiped out from Jharkhand after Assembly elections: Hemant Soren

Former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on Saturday, 29 June, slammed the BJP for allegedly hatching a conspiracy against him and claimed that the saffron party will be wiped out from the state after the Assembly elections due later in 2024.

Addressing JMM workers at his residence, Soren said there would be a "revolt against those who plotted the conspiracy" to confine him in jail and "people of Jharkhand would not spare the BJP".

"Time has come to put the last nail in BJP's coffin. In coming days, the BJP will be wiped out from Jharkhand," the JMM executive president said.

Soren was released on Friday from the Birsa Munda Jail after the state high court granted bail to him in a money laundering case, observing that he was prima facie not guilty, and there was no likelihood of the petitioner committing an offence on bail.

The JMM leader was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 31 January in connection with its investigation into the money laundering case linked to the illegal possession of 8.36 acres of land.

Soren alleged that the BJP has controlled all constitutional establishments but people taught them a lesson in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

"It has come to my knowledge that they are making plans to prepone assembly elections ... I dare them to conduct the elections any day they wish to...the BJP's dream of winning assembly elections in Jharkhand will be 'Mungerilal ke haseen sapne'...the BJP is naming tribals as CMs in states but they are just rubber stamps," the JMM leader said.

Soren claimed that the pace of Jharkhand's progress was "deliberately slowed down" in the last five months as the BJP was "afraid" of the popularity of the JMM-led alliance which had taken welfare measures for tribals, poor people and the downtrodden.

"The BJP has expertise in destroying the social fabric of India. It has divided people on the basis of caste, creed, religion and rich and poor," he alleged.

The JMM leader garlanded the statue of tribal icon Birsa Munda at Birsa Chowk.

Soren said the entire nation saw the way he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and people are now reading the court order.

The court order said: "Though the conduct of the petitioner has been sought to be highlighted by the Enforcement Directorate on account of the First Information Report instituted by the petitioner (Soren) against the officials of the ED but on an overall conspectus of the case, there is no likelihood of the petitioner committing a similar nature of the offence," the court said.

The single bench order also mentioned that the consequence of the findings recorded by the court "satisfies the condition as at section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 to the effect that there is reason to believe that the petitioner is not guilty of the offence as alleged".

It also mentioned, "The overall conspectus of the case based on broad possibilities does not specifically or indirectly assign the petitioner to be involved in the acquisition and possession as well as concealment of 8.86 acres of land at Shantinagar, Bargain, Ranchi connected to the proceeds of crime."

Soren, soon after his release from jail, had said, "I was falsely implicated. A conspiracy was hatched against me and I was forced to spend five months in jail."

He alleged that those who raised their voice against the central government were being suppressed.

"I will complete the task that I had undertaken, the war I waged," Soren said.

Soren had been summoned multiple times by the ED before he was questioned at his residence and subsequently arrested on 31 January.