Under CBI cloud, miffed by Kalpana Soren rise, JMM chief’s other daughter-in-law joins BJP: Who is Sita Soren

As three-term Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MLA Sita Murmu Soren, the 48-year-old daughter-in-law of JMM chief Shibu Soren, quit the party and joined the BJP Tuesday, a JMM leader said, “The writing was on the wall. It was just a matter of when?”

Sita’s husband late Durga Soren was considered a “natural successor” to Shibu. However, Durga’s death in 2009 due to brain haemorrhage led to the elevation of his younger brother

Hemant Soren as the next leader.

Hemant was forced to step down as the Chief Minister on January 31 this year after he was arrested by the ED in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land scam. He has been in jail now.

Its succession trouble has now returned to haunt the Soren family, with Sita now charging that she has been a victim of “continuous neglect” and had been “isolated by the party and family members”.

A JMM insider said Sita was “perturbed” by the growing popularity of her sister-in-law Kalpana Murmu Soren, Hemant’s wife, who had emerged as one of the CM contenders ahead of Hemant’s resignation. Sita had then vehemently opposed Kalpana’s CM aspiration. Both Sita and Kalpana hail from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district.

“As Kalpana’s popularity is growing, so does her acceptance within the party ranks. And it is assumed as one of the reasons why Sita took such a call. In the party she would be a minister at best if the ruling JMM gets a renewed mandate in the coming Assembly elections,” said a JMM insider.

Sita had been at loggerheads with the Hemant dispensation. In August 2022, she had flagged “rising corruption” in the state, alleging that the then Hemant-led coalition government had remained “ineffective in curbing loot of the land”.

The JMM however rejects her allegations, with the party leaders