Numbers seem to favour Soren ahead of Jharkhand floor test today

RANCHI: Hemant Soren battened down the hatches on the eve of his floor test as Jharkhand chief minister on Monday, with the numbers seemingly stacked in favour of his JMM-led coalition.
The 48-year-old was sworn in on July 4, within a week of getting bail in a money laundering case tied to an alleged land scam. "The majority mark in the House is currently 39," Javed Haider, secretary of Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha, told TOI ahead of the test.
The 81-member assembly's effective strength is now 76 after four MLAs (two each from BJP and JMM) were elected to the Lok Sabha, and one (JMM's Sita Soren) resigned before joining BJP this March.Sita is Hemant's sister-in-law.
Of the 76 MLAs, 46 are aligned with the INDIA bloc of JMM, Congress and others, while 30 are with BJP-led NDA. "We are poised to win the floor test convincingly," said state Congress spokesperson Satish Paul Munjini. He pointed out that when Hemant had staked claim on July 3 to form govt before governor CP Radhakrishnan, he had done so with 44 MLAs.
As the MLAs of JMM, Congress and RJD gathered at Soren's residence on Sunday to chalk out a strategy for the floor test, so did the opposition lawmakers led by BJP state chief Babulal Marandi.