11 months ago
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- Surrounded by cops, former Chief Minister Hemant Soren reached the Assembly this morning to cast his vote in the majority test. A court on Saturday allowed the jailed JMM leader to cast his vote.
- The JMM has 29 seats, its ally Congress has 17 and RJD and CPI (ML) have 1 seat in the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly. This adds up to 48. On the other side, the BJP has 26 MLAs and its ally All Jharkhand Students' Union has three.
- One JMM MLA, Sarfaraz Ahmed, had earlier resigned. This has brought down the strength of the Assembly to 80. The majority mark now stands at 41.
- The JMM has claimed that it has enough votes to sail through the majority test. JMM lawmaker Mithilesh Thakur has claimed many BJP legislators are backing their alliance.
- The MLAs had been flown to Hyderabad to keep the flock together and prevent any horse-trading attempt. They returned last night to participate in the majority vote.
- "Our MLAs are united... We have the support of 48 to 50 legislators," state minister Alamgir Alam told reporters on their return from Hyderabad this evening.
- JMM lawmaker Mithilesh Thakur asserted that the party-led coalition will sail through the trust vote, reported news agency Press Trust of India. "Many BJP legislators are also in support of the alliance in the state," he claimed.
- Biranchi Narain, Chief Whip of the BJP in the state, said the coalition was set to lose the vote of confidence.
- Champai Soren -- along with ministers Alamgir Alam of the Congress and Satyanand Bhokta of the RJD -- was administered the oath of office by Governor CP Radhakrishnan on February 2,over 24 hours after Hemant Soren stepped down from the top post.
- Shortly after, he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged money laundering case connected to a land scam. The former Chief Minister -- who was questioned on Wednesday morning -- was being evasive, the Central agency had said, and pointed to the seven summons he had evaded.
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