Champai Soren: From Farm Worker To "Jharkhand's Tiger"

From a humble farm worker, who tilled fields with his father in the remote Jilingora village in Jharkhand's Seraikela-Kharsawan district, to being known as "Jharkhand's Tiger", 67-year-old Champai Soren has had his share of ups and downs.

A loyalist of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Shibu Soren, the state transport minister is popularly known as “Jharkhand's tiger" for his contribution to the long fight for the creation of the state in the 1990s.

"I used to work in farms along with my father (Simal Soren)... Now fate has offered me a different role," Champai Soren told news agency PTI after being elected as the leader of the JMM legislative party. This came after Hemant Soren resigned as Jharkhand Chief Minister following his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case.

A matriculate from a government school, Champai Soren married at a young age and has four sons and three daughters.

He began his political career with his election as an Independent MLA through a by-election from the Saraikela seat in 1991.

Four years later, he contested the assembly polls from the seat on a JMM ticket and defeated BJP's Panchu Tudu.

In the 2000 assembly elections, he was defeated from the same constituency by BJP's Anant Ram Tudu but regained the seat in 2005, defeating the BJP candidate by a slim margin of only 880 votes.

Champai Soren won the subsequent elections in 2009, 2014, and 2019.

He served as a cabinet minister in the BJP government headed by Arjun Munda between September 2010 to January 2013.

When Hemant Soren formed a government in the state in 2019, Champai Soren became the Minister of Food and Civil Supplies and Transport.

His name has been proposed as the new Chief Minister of Jharkhand and a support letter has been given to the Governor CP Radhakrishnan.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)