Raghubar Das: BJP's frontrunner for CM of Jharkhand

He was one of 10 national vice-presidents appointed by Amit Shah after he took charge

Raghubar Das, 59, deputy chief minister in the Shibu Soren government after the 2009 assembly elections, is favoured to become the first non-tribal chief minister of Jharkhand. He was one of 10 national vice-presidents appointed by Amit Shah after the latter took charge as chief of the BJP.

Das had come close to the CM's chair in 2009 as well. His name was proposed, while deputy CM, as a compromise to save the BJP-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha coalition government. However, the Sorens - Shibu and son Hemant - were less than keen to have a non-tribal as CM, while the BJP also stuck to its decision to pull out of the government.

Das, say sources in the Jharkhand party unit, is the most business-friendly face it has. He has handled several portfolios in Jharkhand governments in the past decade and a half, and is known to be efficient and punctual.

As with many of the BJP's current crop of top leaders, he's a first-generation politician. He hails from the Other Backward Communities (OBC) and is a veteran of the JP Movement of the early 1970s. Das quit his studies in 1974 to answer the call of 'sampoorna kranti' or total revolution by Jayaprakash Narayan. He was an active member of the then Chhatra Sangharsh Morcha and the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini. So were Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad and many other young men, jailed during the Emergency rule years of 1975-77.

Coming out of jail, Das studied for a law degree. In 1980, he joined the BJP and has risen through its ranks, working his way from the block level to a district head and an MLA in 1995. It was at the intervention of K Govindacharya, then the party's national general secretary and a votary of giving increased representation to OBCs, that Das was chosen over veteran Dinanath Pandey for a nomination to contest from the Jamshedpur East constituency, in what was then Bihar, in 1995.

Das retained the seat in the assembly elections in 2000 and was labour minister in the first government of the new Jharkhand state, led by Babulal Marandi. He got the building construction department portfolio when the Arjun Munda-led government replaced Marandi's, resigning when made the BJP state chief in 2004.

He's unlikely to have an easy ride in managing the much-divided Jharkhand BJP. Already, a faction has started accusing Das and his supporters of having contributed to the loss of their pre-eminent tribal face, Munda. Das, therefore, will need all the support he can get from Delhi to ensure a smooth reign as CM, if chosen.