Hemant Soren will take oath as Jharkhand chief minister for the fourth time on Thursday while the swearing-in of his cabinet colleagues will be held at a later date.

Jharkhand Congress president Keshav Mahato ‘Kamlesh’ informed that Soren would be taking oath alone at Morabadi Ground in Ranchi.

“The oath-taking of the remaining cabinet posts would be held at a later date. We have received this communication from the chief minister itself,” Mahato said.

The senior Congress leader further informed that the AICC high command would soon decide on the names of MLAs for the ministerial berths from the Congress quota.

He feigned ignorance about the number of ministers from the Congress quota.

However, senior JMM leaders confirmed that the number of cabinet berths would be based on the last term’s (2019) formula.

“The cabinet berth allocations would be decided by Hemant Soren, but the numbers ‘is most likely to be that of the last term with one ministerial berth for every five MLAs’. Based on this formula, the JMM will have six ministerial berths while the Congress will have four and the RJD will get one. The CPI-ML, which has joined the coalition this election, has not so far put any request for ministerial berth and a slot will be accommodated for it based on their request,” a senior JMM MLA, who was part of the meeting of the ruling coalition held in Ranchi earlier on Sunday, had told The Telegraph earlier.

The CPI-ML would take a decision on whether it would support the government from the outside or be part of it on November 29, the day after the swearing-in ceremony, during its standing committee meeting.

According to a directive from the Supreme Court, the number of cabinet members is limited to 15 per cent of the total number of MPs or MLAs. Since the Jharkhand Assembly has a total strength of 81 members, the cabinet can have up to 12 members, including the chief minister.

Several newly elected Congress MLAs are learnt to be camping in Delhi making parleys with the AICC senior functionaries for inclusion of their names in ministerial berths.

Barring Lohardaga MLA Rameshwar Oraon, Pakur MLA Nishat Alam (wife of former cabinet minister Alamgir Alam who is in judicial custody following the arrest by Enforcement Directorate on money laundering charges) and Bokaro MLA Shweta Singh, almost all the Congress MLAs are learnt to be in Delhi.

Congress won 16 seats (a virtual repeat of 2019 performance) in the just concluded Assembly polls.

In the JMM quota, Sahibganj MLA M.T. Raja along with Chaibasa MLA Deepak Birua, Ghatshila MLA Ramdas Soren, Giridih MLA Sudivya Kumar ‘Sonu’, Jama MLA Louis Marandi (who switched over from the BJP to the JMM prior to polls) and Tundi MLA Mathura Mahato are among the front runners for ministerial berths.

Hectic parleys were being held at the RJD state office in Ranchi for the single post of ministerial berth till the time of filing this report. There are four RJD MLAs in the new Assembly — Sanjay Prasad Yadav (Godda), Naresh Prasad Singh (Bishrampur), Sanjay Kumar Singh Yadav (Hussainabad) and former cabinet minister Suresh Paswan who has already been selected as RJD legislative party leader in the Assembly by the party.

Almost all the non-BJP (INDIA bloc)-ruled state chief ministers will be attending the swearing-in ceremony scheduled at 4pm on Thursday along with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Tejashwi, Arvind Kejriwal, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, Naveen Patnaik, CPI-ML national general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.