On being asked about the reason for his recent visit to New Delhi amidst the political crisis in Jharkhand, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MLA and Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s brother Basant Soren said that he ran out of underwear and went to Delhi to buy some.
“I had run out of undergarments, so I went to Delhi to purchase them. I get them from there,” said Basant Soren when asked by reporters about the reason behind his recent Delhi visit.
#WATCH | Dumka: “I had run out of undergarments, so I went to Delhi to purchase them. I get them from there,” says JMM MLA and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren’s brother, Basant Soren when asked about his visit to Delhi amid recent political unrest in the state.
— ANI (@ANI) September 8, 2022
(07.09.2022) pic.twitter.com/GBiNWZaLzr
This remark has sparked controversy, with several individuals on social media calling out Soren’s arrogance at a time when the state is in a political crisis and two adolescent girls had been brutally murdered in the state. Basant Soren could not be seen in his constituency after the brutal murders of two minor girls. Soren’s rationale for his absence from Dumka, which has still not recovered from the trauma of two successive killings of two minor girls within a fortnight, including a tribal, exposes Jharkhand’s political landscape.
Journalist Aman Chopra took to Twitter and wrote, “Remember a plane flew from Bhopal to Indore to pick up Nehru’s fav 555 brand Cigarettes and now this. Plane to buy undergarments from Delhi. Basant Soren, brother of Chief Minister Hemant Soren, is an MLA from Dumka, where murders are taking place continuously.”
Remember a plane flew from Bhopal to indore to pick up Nehru’s fav 555 brand Cigarettes and now this. Plane to buy undergarments from delhi.
— Aman Chopra (@AmanChopra_) September 8, 2022
बसंत सोरेन मुख्यमंत्री हेमंत सोरेन के भाई उसी दुमका से विधायक हैं जहां लगातार हत्याएँ हो रही हैं।
https://t.co/XcN2I6du7p
An outraged social media user targeting Basant Soren wrote, “Ankita was burnt alive and killed by Shahrukh and he went to Delhi to buy underwear!”
Ankita को ज़िंदा जला कर मार दिया शाहरुख़ ने और ये कच्छे खरीदने दिल्ली गया था! ??? https://t.co/JNSdNzMoOu
— Dr Manjeet Singh (@4444dentistM) September 8, 2022
In Dumka, there were two cold-blooded killings, and Basant Soren was nowhere to be found. First, a 17-year-old Hindu schoolgirl was set ablaze after being doused in petrol by a man named Shahrukh as she slept at home, apparently as retaliation for turning down Shahrukh’s romance proposal. Second, a 14-year-old Dalit girl was murdered and hanged on a tree miles from her home after being raped for several months.
Basant Soren visited the mourning relatives on Wednesday. Soren informed reporters that he had been to Delhi to buy underwear when asked by the media why he hadn’t been seen in Dumka for a few days. It is notable that similar remarks were made by Jharkhand chief minister and his brother Hemant Soren when asked about the murders. Hemant Soren had said that such incidents keep happening and there’s nothing new about them.
#WATCH | “Incidents happen. Where do they not occur?” says Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren on the recent incident of a minor girl hanged to death from a tree in Dumka pic.twitter.com/5DoGnWvNtO
— ANI (@ANI) September 4, 2022
Notably, Dumka is a long-held stronghold of Hemant Soren and his family. The Chief Minister has tried to stop protests against such incidents in the past by imposing section 144 whenever he could. As per reports, Dumka is becoming a hub of such cases thanks to indoctrination by banned Jihadi organisations from Bangladesh.
