‘We will soon come back to power in Jharkhand’: ex-CM Raghubar Das after rejoining BJP

Ranchi, Jan 10 (PTI) Former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das on Friday rejoined the BJP here and asserted that the party will return to power in the state.

Das had earlier resigned from the post of Odisha governor on December 24 last year to return to active politics after the party’s debacle in the assembly elections, in which it failed to dislodge the JMM-led coalition from power in the state.

Das was given a warm welcome into the saffron fold at the BJP’s state headquarters in the presence of the party’s state unit president Babulal Marandi, working president Ravindra Rai, Union minister Sanjay Seth, and hundreds of supporters.

Speaking on the occasion, Das said that he was happy to take the membership of the party for the second time since 1980 and he would serve the people.

He had to quit the party after assuming the position of the Odisha governor in 2023.

“In the 2024 assembly polls, all party members, right from the state president to booth level workers, made their honest effort but we did not get the desired results. We should not be disheartened by the results. We will come back soon,” Das said.

The party faced a major setback in the 2024 Jharkhand assembly elections, managing to win only 21 seats, despite an all-out blitz. The JMM-led alliance stormed to power for the second consecutive term, winning 56 seats in the 81-member assembly.

“People of Jharkhand have given their mandate to the alliance government. We respect the mandate and hope the government will fulfill the promises made to the people. We will give two-three months to them to fulfill their promises. If the government fails to do it, we will launch our struggle on the streets,” he said.

Das, who was the first non-tribal chief minister of Jharkhand from 2014-2019, was appointed the governor of Odisha on October 18, 2023 after the party’s defeat in the 2019 assembly polls in the state.

Das had 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 in undivided Bihar. He went on to win the seat five times.

He became a minister for the first time in the Babulal Marandi government after the creation of Jharkhand 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.