The Hindu : BJP sends team to Ranchi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 29, 2002

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BJP sends team to Ranchi

By Our Staff Correspondent

RANCHI JULY 28. The Bharatiya Janata Party has dispatched two observers to take stock of the situation here, even as the State Government has sought to clarify its stand to the Union Government on Jharkhand's new domicile policy, which is causing disturbance in the plateau region.

Worried over developments here, the party has deputed its vice-president in-charge of Jharkhand Affairs, Kailashpati Mishra, and Devdas Apte, MP, who had worked as a pracharak in the region earlier.

In fact, the BJP had sought to tackle the situation before it went out control, but in vain. Large scale violence erupted here even as the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, summoned the Chief Minister, Babu Lal Marandi, to New Delhi last Wednesday. Five persons were killed even before the Chief Minister could return from Delhi with instructions that he hold an all-party meeting to discuss the implementation of the new domicile policy under which settlers prior to 1932 alone were entitled to grade III and IV Government jobs.

The pre and post-1932 settlers have already enforced four bandhs in support of and against the policy, dividing the population on tribal and non-tribal basis. Five police station areas remained under prohibitory orders for over a couple of days. The ban orders have since been relaxed in three police station areas.

The BJP's discomfiture is compounded by the fact that Parliament is in session where the Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, is supposed to make a statement on the issue during the week, and in that light the Union Home Ministry has called for a report from the State Government. The latter is said to have taken the stand, in its report to the Centre, that it had merely adopted the prevalent circular in unified Bihar, replacing the name of the State with the nomenclature, Jharkhand. It remains to be seen if the Centre takes the statement at face value, particularly against the backdrop of the two former Chief Ministers, the RJD President, Laloo Prasad Yadav, and the NCP general secretary, Jagannath Mishra, crying foul and stressing that the circular, issued by the Labour Department about two decades ago, pertained to industrial units to ensure that the locals were given preference in grade III and IV.

The Samata Party and the JD(U), both partners in the coalition government here, are opposed to the new domicile policy. The Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar, has been demanding its revocation , lending strength to the Opposition stand.

The supporters of the new policy, including the Chief Minister, are of the view that the State had been created for the development of the Adivasis and that the primary objective of any policy had to be in their interest and for their development.

The BJP leadership would be weighing the pros and cons before taking any decision. But the Chief Minister does not seem to have benefited much from his actions if one goes by the defeat of the BJP in the by-election for the Dumka Lok Sabha seat, which the JMM President, Mr. Shibu Soren, wrested with greater ease than ever.

Priests extend support

UNI reports:

A delegation of Christian priests, here to attend the Archbishops' Conference, called on Mr. Marandi yesterday and expressed support to the new domicile policy.

The delegation, led by Archbishop Telsphore Toppo, said the policy was in the larger interests of the tribals and the non-tribals, native to Jharkhand.

Sources said that Mr. Marandi apprised the bishops of his Government's stand and told them that some vested interests were trying to engineer ethnic clashes.

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