Jharkhand, which has seen nine governments in the last 14 years, has created history. Five time BJP MLA, Raghubar Das, on Sunday took oath as the first non-tribal chief minister of the state.
BJP, which won 37 seats in recently held Jharkhand Assembly elections, has formed a stable government in coalition with ally AJSU (5 seats) in the 81 member Assembly which was till date notorious for its political instability.
Governor of Jharkhand Syed Ahmed administered the oath of office and secrecy to Das at the Birsa Munda Football Stadium here. Among the cabinet ministers, Nilkanth Singh Munda, Chandreswar Prasad Singh, Louis Marandi (all BJP) and Chandraprakash Choudhary (Ajsu party) also took oath. Jharkhand has a maximum limit of 12 ministers, including the chief minister.
However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was to attend the ceremony along with BJP chief Amit Shah, took to Twitter today and said that he will not be attending the ceremony due to poor weather conditions. He also congratulated the people of Jharkhand for electing a stable government.
From PM Modi’s Cabinet, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari were present during the ceremony. The ceremony also saw the presence of Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh and former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren.
Soon after taking the oath, Das was congratulated by many politicos.
Das joined the BJP as a worker and then gradually rose through the party ranks before getting the first break when he was nominated as party candidate from Jamshedpur (East) in the 1995 Assembly elections.He went on to win the seat five times.
He became a minister for the first time after the creation of Jharkhand in the Babulal Marandi government and got berths in the subsequent two governments led by Arjun Munda before becoming the deputy chief minister in the Shibu Soren-led government in 2009.
He held portfolios of finance, labour and urban development during his stint as cabinet minister.
