Ex-Jharkhand CM Champai Soren says he has decided to trust PM Modi, join BJP

Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader and former chief minister of the state Champai Soren on Tuesday said that he has decided to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, claiming that only the Hindutva party was serious about the problem of “infiltrators from Bangladesh”.

Soren alleged that other parties were turning a blind eye to the matter because of their electoral interests. “So, in the fight to protect the identity and existence of the Adivasis, I have reposed my trust in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah,” he said.

The former chief minister claimed that undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh were harming Adivasi culture socially and economically in Jharkhand’s Santhal Pargana division. He claimed that undocumented immigrants had outnumbered the Adivasi population in areas such as Pakur and Rajmahal.

“What can be more unfortunate than the fact that these infiltrators are occupying the lands of the descendants of those heroes who never accepted slavery of the foreign British in the fight for water, forest and land?” Soren said in a post on X.

While the BJP has persistently made claims about undocumented Muslim immigrants grabbing land in Jharkhand, a Scroll investigation found no evidence for the claim.

Last month, Adivasi rights group Loktantra Bachao Abhiyan also refuted the claim that undocumented migrants from Bangladesh were responsible for the...

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