Kalpana, the wife of the then-Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Hemant Soren, took the plunge into the arena of politics on Monday by filing her nomination as the JMM nominee for the forthcoming by-election of the Gandey assembly constituency.
Accompanied by Chief Minister Champai Soren, brother-in-law Basant Soren, Jharkhand Congress president Rajesh Thakur, and ministers Alamgir Alam and Satyanand Bhokta, among others, Kalpana, 48, took this significant step ahead of the by-election scheduled for May 20, which is slated to coincide with the state's parliamentary elections.
With the resignation of the JMM MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad, the seat in Giridih district left vacant, the by-election became necessary.
Kalpana made her ambitions clear after filing the nomination papers, asking for support and blessing of the people of Gandey, saying, "Give us one more chance, give us your blessings… this election is happening for the people of Gandey." At the forefront of concerns about the opposition, she made it clear about the strength of the coalition both within the state and outside.
She termed her approach to criticism that she is open to constructive criticism and showed the commitment of engaging the constituents by the way.
Kalpana's plunge into politics is pretty different, with educational qualifications ranging from an MTech to an MBA. Her educational career began in Baripada in Odisha, where she did her schooling, and it took her into engineering and MBA degrees in Bhubaneswar.
Her entry into politics took its initiate with the 51st foundation-day ceremony of the JMM in Giridih district, where she stood loud against the so-called conspiracies against her family since the rise of the Hemant Soren-led coalition government in 2019. She repeated her resolve to confront the conspiracies and fight for justice.
This decision is now coming in the wake of his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate on January 31 over a money laundering case linked to a land scam. Despite these trials, the ruling alliance, under the banner of the JMM, was shown to have its might, as Kalpana said, on February 5, by pledging to fight injustice.
Speculation over Kalpana joining the fray began in December after JMM's Gandey MLA Sarfaraz Ahmad quit over the weekend. The BJP has been said to have been preparing the ground to give way to her entry into the political race if her husband faces any other legal cases. However, Hemant Soren denied the rumors as propaganda of the BJP.
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