Pranab Mukherjee, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar to attend Hemant Soren's oath-taking ceremony

Former President Pranab Mukherjee will lead the galaxy of non-BJP: leaders to attend the grand swearing-in ceremony of Hemant Soren as chief minister of Jharkhand here at Morabadi Maidan on Sunday.

The list of VIPs consenting to the state government's invitation to come on Sunday include six chief ministers and six former chief ministers. Those coming are- Maharashtra chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The list of former chief ministers who will attend the swearing in ceremony are, Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav, H D Kumaraswamy and Chandra Babu Naidu.

Even NCP president Sharad Pawar, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, P Chidambaram, Ahmed Patel, K C Venugopal, RPN Singh are also likely to attend the ceremony.

From Tamil Nadu DMK leaders M K Stalin, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, T R Balu will also felicitate Hemant. The Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha Harivansh will also attend the function.

From Patna, leader of opposition in Bihar assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Sidiqqui have been invited.

JMM spokesman Supriyo Bhattacharya today said an invitation was also sent to



Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, but his consent has not been received as yet. “No leader from the BJP has been invited.”

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das, meanwhile left for New Delhi on Friday evening and is likely to skip the swearing-in ceremony function.

Meanwhile, deputy commissioner of Ranchi, Rai Mahimat Ray today ordered an inquiry into the violation of jail manual at Prison ward of a hospital where RJD president Lalu Prasad is admitted. Ray said he has directed the jail superintendent to conduct an inquiry as to how over a dozen people were allowed entry into the ward where Lalu was admitted.

On Thursday, the chief minister designate, Hemant Sore, a former minister of Bihar, Narendra Singh and senior Congress MLA of Jharkhand Rajendra Singh, were permitted by the jail authorities to meet Lalu. But later over a dozen other RJD and JMM leaders met him for two hours. On Wednesday too, jail manual rules were violated and Lalu met several leadeers. According to the jail rules, only three visitors are allowed to meet Lalu on Saturday.

Since the Jharkhand assembly election results were announced on Monday, Lalu Prasad has started meeting party leaders of RJD, Congress and JMM and guiding them on the cabinet formation. Nitin Nawin, a senior BJP MLA said, "this is the beginning of the new government. Now, Soren government will be run from jail".