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Bihar minister revolts against RJD

Bihar Programme Implementation Minister Aklu Ram Mahato today revolted against the Rashtriya Janata Dal leadership by giving a call to all MPs and MLAs of the Jharkhand region to assemble in Bokaro on October 2 to decide the course of action on the issue of formation of a separate state of Jharkhand.

Mahato said a meeting of all present and former parliamentarians and legislators of the Jharkhand region had been organised to give a message to the state and the nation that all of them, irrespective of their party affiliations, were united on the issue of formation of a separate Jharkhand state.

The minister said he was first a Jharkhandi and then a RJD leader and minister. He was more committed to the cause of the Jharkhand region than the political party he belonged to, Mahato added.

For this cause he could even sacrifice the party and the ministerial office, Mahato said when told that he might be expelled from the party and removed from the state cabinet for his anti-party stand on the issue of bifurcation of the state.

Mahato said during the 1995 assembly election in the state the unified Janata Dal had, in its manifesto, promised a separate Jharkhand state.

Mahato was the lone RJD legislator who had walked out of the Bihar assembly during discussion on the Bihar Reorganisation Bill, 1998, seeking the creation of a separate Vananchal state, charging the party leadership with denying him an opportunity to participate in the debate.

He later participated in the proceedings of the House when assured by RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav that he would also be allowed to speak on the bill. Finally, he did not get time to express his views on the subject.

Mahato had not participated in the dharna, staged by RJD ministers and leaders of the Congress, the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the breakaway CPI group, in front of Raj Bhavan on September 22 to protest the Union Cabinet's recommendation to the President for the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government.

UNI

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