He is also the President of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) political party, a constituent of the INDIA Alliance.
He was the member of Lok Sabha from Dumka from 1980 to 1984, 1989 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2019 and Minister for Coal in the Union Cabinet from 2004 to 2004, 2004 to 2005 and from 2006 to 2006, when a Delhi district court found him guilty in the murder of his private secretary Shashi Nath Jha in 1994.
He became the Union Coal Minister in the Manmohan Singh government, but was asked to resign following an arrest warrant in his name in the thirty-year-old Chirudih case.
On 28 November 2006, Soren was found guilty in a twelve-year-old case involving the kidnapping and murder of his former personal secretary Shashinath Jha.
It was claimed that Jha was abducted from the Dhaula Kuan area in Delhi on 22 May 1994 and taken to Piska Nagari near Ranchi where he was killed.
The CBI chargesheet stated that Jha's knowledge of the reported deal between the Congress and the JMM to save the Narasimha Rao government during the July 1993 no-confidence motion and an act of sodomy was the motive behind the murder.
The charge-sheet asserted that: "Jha was aware of the illegal transactions and also expected and demanded a substantial share out of this amount from Soren.
A Delhi court rejected his bail plea, stating: 'We cannot overlook the fact that the appellant (Soren) has been convicted after a detailed and elaborate trial only in November 2006 and sentenced in December 2006.
[11] On 25 June 2007, Shibu Soren was being escorted to his jail in Dumka, Jharkhand when his convoy was attacked by bombs,[12] but no one was hurt.
The five men convicted by the Tis Hazari court were held guilty of criminal conspiracy, abduction and murder primarily on the basis of forensic evidence provided by a post-mortem report of a body discovered in Jharkhand, namely a skull superimposition test and skull injury report.
His son, Hemant Soren as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand He is currently CM previously from July 2013 to December 2014.