SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad July 25: With the selection of Jamshedpur’s Rakeshwar Pandey as the Jharkhand INTUC president, the Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Sangh (RCMS), which is the frontal miners labourers’ organization of the Congress Party, has lost its hold on state INTUC for the first time in 50 years after the nationalization of the coal sector.
Since the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1971–1972, the RCMS has dominated the Congress Party’s labour organisation. Its leaders were chosen to serve as INTUC’s president and general secretary until 2022.
Several veteran trade union leaders of RCMS dominated INTUC as either president or general secretary right from 1971-72 to 2022. They include:
- Kanti Mehta
- Michael John
- BP Sinha
- Former Bihar chief minister Bindeshwari Dubey
- Ram Narayan Sharma
- S Dasgupta
- SK Ray
- Sidheswar Prasad Singh
- Damodar Pandey
- Rajendra Prasad Singh
- Chandrashekhar Dubey
- A K Jha
- Suresh Chandra
However, for the first time in 50 years, a non-RCMS leader Rakeshwar Pandey has been nominated the president of Jharkhand INTUC. On July 20, S Sanjeeva Reddy, the INTUC national president, endorsed the name of Rakeshwar Pandey.
After the death of Rajendra Prasad Singh, for the last two years, Rakeshwar Singh was heading the ad-hoc committee and on July 20, the national president endorsed him as the permanent president of Jharkhand INTUC.
Rakeshwar Pandey is the president and secretary of Jamshedpur-based different employee unions.
As per general secretary AK Jha, RCMS has 1.85 lakh miners as members across the country and 71, 687 miners in Jharkhand-based BCCL, CCL, ECL, Tata Collieries and IISCO.
“The factional feud in RCMS is the main reason for its losing hold in INTUC. At present, five factions function as RCMS which include the Rajendra Singh group, Chandrashekhar Dubey group, Lalan Choubey group and now Suresh Chandra Jha group claim to be the real one. The matter is pending in court. Had they been united, Rakeshwar Pandey of the steel sector wing would not have become the president of INTUC,” said the RCMS leader of Dhanbad.
However, Suresh Chandra Jha, INTUC senior vice-president who also runs a faction of RCMS, does not believe that RCMS has lost its hold in the state INTUC and claims its dominance has rather increased. He said that representation of RCMS has increased in INTUC. “I can say Rakeshwar Pandey is running INTUC better than Rajendra Prasad Singh,” said Jha.
RCMS keeps special significance for the Congress party as it dominates 14 Lok Sabha seats of Jharkhand (South Bihar region). It is one of the reasons why late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi kept a personal interest in RCMS as well as state INTUC affairs.
A senior Congress leader recalled that in the early 1980s, a dispute cropped over the Bihar INTUC president post between former MP Ram Narayan Sharma and Bindeshwari Dubey.
Indira Gandhi sent senior leader Sitaram Kesri (the then treasurer of the All India Congress Committee) to Dhanbad for solving the dispute. Kesri held a meeting in the Circuit House and conveyed the wish of Indira Gandhi. Finally, Ram Narayan Sharma withdrew his name and Bindeshwari Dubey became the president.
Moreover, one post of Governor was always reserved for the national president of INTUC in the Congress government.
“Of course after the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the state RCMS became gradually weak. Now Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to finish it by removing the policy-making body of the coal industry,” said RCMS general secretary AK Jha, who is also the senior vice-president of INTUC.
After the death of Rajendra Prasad Singh, the RCMS pushed up the name of his son Anup Singh for INTUC president.
Anup Singh was made the president of RCMS and the Indian National Mines Workers Federation (INMWF) superseding several senior leaders like former minister Mannan Mallick, Santosh Mahto, AK Jha, Suresh Chandra Jha and Birendra Prasad Ambastha who had worked with his father.
But sources said that INTUC national president S Sanjeeva Reddy having seen dispute in the RCMS preferred a non-RCMS leader (Rakeshwar Pandey) as the state INTUC president.
