Kalpana Soren, the wife of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, might take over the top job if her husband gets arrested in an alleged money laundering case, sources in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha Party have claimed.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had made a similar claim earlier this month, but was dismissed by the Chief Minister himself. Mr Soren had even ruled out the possibility of his wife contesting polls in near future.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will question Mr Soren in the laundering case today, after which there are chances that he might get arrested. And if that happens, it was proposed at a meeting of MLAs that his wife Kalpana may be made the Chief Minister, the sources said.
Ms Soren is not an MLA, and if sworn in as the Chief Minister, she will have to become a member of the assembly by winning a by-election within six months. But there's a hurdle in this case: a bypoll may be ruled out since the term of the assembly ends in less than a year.
Kalpana, who is from Odisha's Mayurbhanj, got married to Hemant Soren on February 7, 2006, and has two children - Nikhil and Ansh.
She was born in 1976 in Ranchi. Her father is a businessman and her mother a homemaker. She did her graduation in engineering, followed by an MBA.
Kalpana Soren reportedly runs a school, is involved in organic farming and owns three commercial buildings that cost nearly ₹ 5 crore. She is also regular at programmes on women and children empowerment.
She made headlines in 2022 after former chief minister Raghubar Das accused Mr Soren of misusing his position to allot a plot in an industrial area to a company owned by his wife.
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