Hours after taking office, Hemant takes battle to Himanta's turf

Hours after JMM leader Hemant Soren was sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand, his government on Thursday approved the formation of a panel to study the plight of the "marginalised" tea tribes in Assam.

The decision, taken in the first cabinet meeting of the Soren government, came against the backdrop of the poll battle between the JMM (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha)-led coalition and the NDA, in which Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma repeatedly raised the issue of the "predicament" of Jharkhand's tribal community owing to alleged large-scale infiltration from Bangladesh. Sarma was the BJP's election co-in-charge for Jharkhand.

"In Assam, tribes from Jharkhand are being marginalised. A large number of original inhabitants of Jharkhand are residing there. We have decided that an all-party panel will study the ground situation there. The panel will submit its report to the Jharkhand government," Soren said while briefing the media on the decisions of his first cabinet meeting.

Soren had raised the issue of the tea tribes in Assam earlier also and now, after winning the elections, he decided to form the panel which is viewed as taking the fight to Sarma's turf.

The JMM-led alliance last week stormed to power in Jharkhand for the second time in a row, securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly, while the BJP-headed NDA managed 24 seats.