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RJD determined to stall creation of Jharkhand

The ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal will oppose tooth and nail the creation of a Jharkhand state comprising 18 districts of south Bihar, state energy minister Ramai Ram said in Ranchi today.

Ram said the RJD was not against Jharkhand, but did not favour a state comprising only 18 districts of Bihar.

The party held that a Jharkhand state of 18 districts would not serve the purpose for which it was being demanded by the tribals of the region.

The RJD favoured a greater Jharkhand of 26 districts, including three districts each of West Bengal and Orissa and two of Madhya Pradesh, he said.

The party would soon launch a massive ' jan jagran ' in the tribal belt to counter the BJP'S alleged conspiracy to colonise the 18 districts in the name of Vananchal, he said. Even the Congress is a party to this communal game, he alleged.

The minister informed that the RJD, in order to counter the statehood demand, would organise an Adivasi rally in Ranchi on November 13.

Reiterating his government's commitment towards development of the 18 districts of south Bihar and uplift of the tribals, Ram said it was his party which had constituted an autonomous council for the area -- the Jharkhand Area Autonomous Council -- for fulfilling the peoples' five-decade-old aspirations.

He said the RJD was opposed to the concept of Vananchal as it was detrimental to the interests of the tribals who were in a minority in the 18 districts of south Bihar. The minister felt that the tribals could get due representation only when the eight tribal dominated districts of West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh were included in the geographical boundary of the state, to be carved out of the 18 districts of Bihar.

To a query, he said the JAAC executive committee was dissolved by the state government to provide an elected body to the area.

He said as the people who had been assigned the task by the government to develop the area had failed to come up to expectations, the state had no option but to dissolve the executive committee, which was an interim arrangement.

UNI

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