With her CM hopes dashed, will Kalpana join husband’s cabinet?

RANCHI: If Kalpana Murmu Soren harboured any dreams of becoming the chief minister, her wait would surely get longer. With her husband Hemant set to be sworn in as the chief minister of Jharkhand for the third time, all eyes are now on her whether she would be inducted into her husband’s cabinet.
From the shadows of the long corridors of the CM’s govt residence on Kanke Road, the 38-year-old homemaker’s life had moved into the fast lane in March this year as she formally joined JMM in March, more than a month after her husband Hemant was arrested by the ED.
With Champai’s backing, JMM projected Kalpana as its face as the party got busy with Lok Sabha elections later that month. Kalpana held 151 election rallies for JMM, rubbed shoulders and shared stage with top INDIA bloc leaders and even won by over 22,000 votes from the Gandey assembly segment in Giridih district, which her husband Hemant had got vacated to bring her into the state assembly if a power vacuum emerged at the top following had he been arrested by the ED which was probing the land scam case.
“I will be ready to take on whatever responsibility the party gives me,” Kalpana had told the media after she entered politics. On being elected from Gandey, Kalpana had announced that her focus was to speed up the development work in her constituency ahead of the assembly elections.
However, sources in JMM said a lobby of lawmakers and party office-bearers had been heavily backing Kalpana to take over as CM from Champai. “It was this lobby which had coaxed Kalpana to join politics while Hemant was initially reluctant. Had Hemant not been granted bail, there was a strong chance of her taking over,” a JMM official said. The BJP, immediately after Lok Sabha polls, had also prophesied that Champai will be forced to step down and make way for Kalpana.
"We will have to see whether she (Kalpana) is inducted into the cabinet. If the cabinet of Champai is reshuffled, then she has a strong chance," a JMM senior office bearer said.
Champai had inducted Hemant’s younger brother Basant into his cabinet on February 2 and handed him the portfolio of road and building construction department.