An 'outsider' on test again: Will Raghubar Das be second-time lucky?

Das has been an MLA from Jamshedpur East since 1995 - an achievement for an 'outsider' who hails from Chhattisgarh and not Jharkhand

Like a constellation of stars, circumstances conjugated to anoint Raghubar Das sixth chief minister of Jharkhand, on December 28, 2014. Two of his predecessors from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — to which Das belongs — were out of the reckoning: Babulal Marandi quit and floated his own outfit while Arjun Munda lost the election that year. By conventional yardsticks, Das was an audacious choice by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP President Amit Shah, like Devendra Fadnavis was in Maharashtra and Manohar Lal Khattar in Haryana.

According to a Ranchi-based political observer, “the choice was part of the