Ranchi, May 20:Chief minister Hemant Soren has sent his reply to the Election Commission notice about his likely disqualification from the assembly because of a stone mining lease in his name last year.
The reply which was taken by a special messenger on Thursday evening was received at Election Commission of India (ECI) office in Delhi on Friday.
“The reply of chief minister Hemant Soren to the ECI notice has been sent and received at ECI office on Friday,” confirmed JMM spokesperson Vinod Pandey.
Incidentally, on May 5 Hemant Soren had sought four-week extension from ECI to give his reply citing illness of his 67 year-old mother Roopi Soren who was undergoing treatment at Hyderabad (She has returned to Ranchi earlier this week) and the documents of ECI being in Hindi and that he needed time to arrange for transliteration from Hindi to English for proper appreciation and understanding of the contents by his legal counsel.
Soren had also requested for personal hearing by the Commission through his legal counsel before the Commission formulates its opinion in the matter for tendering it to the Governor of Jharkhand under Article 192(2) of the Constitution of India.
Significantly, ECI had issued notice to Hemant Soren on May 2 after scrutinising a reference sent by Jharkhand governor Ramesh Bais on March 25. The commission told Soren to respond by May 10 and later on his request asked him to file reply by May 20.
A BJP delegation led by former chief minister and party national vice-president Raghubar Das had asked governor Ramesh Bais in February to dismiss Soren and have him prosecuted for corruption.
In April, the ECI asked Jharkhand chief secretary Sukhdev Singh to submit all documents related to the lease.
