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Centre warned of violent agitation in south Bihar

The Akhil Jharkhand Mukti Morcha today threatened to launch an agitation in south Bihar if the Centre fails to ensure the passage of the Bihar State Reorganisation Bill, 1998, in the current Budget session of Parliament.

AJMM convener Sudhir Mahato said the situation might turn violent if the Centre fails to get the bill, which was introduced in the winter session of Parliament, passed.

Calling upon the people to be prepared for a "decisive fight", he said, "We want Jharkhand and will not sit idle till its realisation."

The AJMM opposed the idea of the proposed state being called Vananchal, but had decided not to make the name an issue as that might delay the state's creation.

Mahato said his party's ultimate goal is a greater Jharkhand, comprising 26 districts of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, for which an agitation will continue even if Vananchal, consisting of 18 districts of south Bihar, comes into existence.

Mahato, one of the five AJMM convenors, who was in Ranchi to attend the party's first three-day central convention that began yesterday, criticised the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party for opposing the state's creation.

He called upon the people to expose the Congress's "double speak" on the issue. He said the party backed the very regime in Bihar that had rejected the creation of Jharkhand.

Welcoming the imposition of President's rule in Bihar, he said it would help the state regain and restore democratic traditions "vitiated by the corrupt and ineffective" Rashtriya Janata Dal government.

UNI

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