How did Hemant Soren get caught in the mining-lease dispute?
What is the charge against Hemant Soren?
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren had applied for approval of mining lease on 0.88 acres in Angara gram panchayat of Ranchi district. The document is registered on the portal of the Centre’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. It has been told that the production in the mine will be 6 thousand 171 tonnes per year. This work will last for five years. The estimated cost was stated to be Rs 26 lakh. According to the documents, the application of CM Hemant had reached the District Mining Officer of Ranchi on 28 May 2021 for demand of lease. On June 1, the District Mining Officer asked the Circle Officer of Angara to investigate. The Gram Panchayat was convened in Angara on 7th June for consent. On the same day, the Block Development Officer of Angara informed the Mining Officer in writing that the Gram Sabha had given approval for the mining lease. On March 14, an agreement was signed between Hemant Soren and nine people of the village. Then a letter of intent was issued. In which ‘in principal approval’ has been given for mining lease with certain conditions. This is where the whole screw gets stuck. However, on February 11, 2022, Hemant Soren surrendered the lease and separated himself as the dispute escalated. By then the ‘mistake’ had already been made. The court had considered the whole matter ‘serious’. In defense, Hemant Soren’s party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha claims that the lease given to Soren was ‘renewal’ and the land taken on lease was shown in several affidavits of the Election Commission.
Will Hemant Soren be trapped like Lalu Yadav?
In Jharkhand, when Hemant Soren got the opportunity to change the fortunes of the people of the state, he got entangled in corruption. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided 25 locations of the highest officer (Mining and Industries Secretary IAS Pooja Singhal) of the ministry which is being handled by Chief Minister Hemant Soren. 19.31 crore cash was found from the residence of Pooja Singhal’s CA Suman Singh in Ranchi. Property documents worth about 150 crores have also been found during the action. Even though the whole matter is not directly reaching CM Hemant, but questions are still arising. This whole matter is exactly the same as when Lalu Yadav was the Chief Minister, there was a fodder scam of about 900 crores in Bihar. Then he got entangled in it. When he became the Railway Minister, two railway hotels were given on lease. After turning around, he got stuck in it too. Even though there was no direct involvement of Lalu Yadav in both the cases, but the accused did become. He is also convicted in fodder scam.
What did Hemant say on the mining-lease allotment dispute?
The country saw the bundles of notes recovered from Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand. The machines got hot while counting the notes. While calculating, the fingers of the ED officers got tired. But Chief Minister Hemant Soren seems unconcerned. According to media reports, he described this action of ED as jackal. Hemant Soren said that we are not an exception. The definition of politics that the BJP is trying to create is not acceptable under any circumstances. He raised questions that what happened to the CBI investigation of JPSC? In his own defense, he narrated the story of children’s cricket. Giving example, Hemant told the media that the way a child runs away with a wicket-ball when he is out in a cricket match. Similarly, BJP starts ‘using’ its machinery when it loses in the political arena. BJP feels that it will overcome us by doing all this. So it is not and will not be so. Meaning he tried to give a political color to the whole matter. But he avoided speaking clearly on the bundles of notes and mining-lease documents recovered in Ranchi.
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