Won’t quit politics, may form new outfit: Champai Soren

RANCHI: Former Jharkhand chief minister Champai Soren on Wednesday said he would not quit politics, asserting that an option to float a new political outfit was always open to him.

Soren said he was firm on his plans after “facing humiliation at the hands of leaders of JMM”, a party to which the veteran leader claimed that he devoted his entire life.

“It is a new chapter of my life. I won’t quit politics as I have received lots of love and support from my followers. I had mentioned three options – quitting politics, organisation or friend. I will not quit politics. The chapter (of quitting politics) has closed, I may form a new outfit,” the senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader said shortly after he reached his ancestral village Jhilingora in Seraikela-Kharsawan district.

The 67-year-old tribal leader has earned the nickname ‘Jharkhand’s Tiger’ for his contribution to the fight to create a separate state in the 1990s.

Jharkhand was carved out of the southern part of Bihar in 2000.

“No one from JMM contacted me. This is the land of Jharkhand… I have struggled since my student life. I participated in the agitation for a separate Jharkhand state under the leadership of party supremo Shibu Soren,” Champai Soren said.