RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, June 3: The Jharkhand Government’s programme held at the Project Bhawan to identify statehood activists turned a fiasco as the latter walked out of the venue and did not allow Dishom Guru Shibu Soren to speak properly in the presence of his son as well as chief minister Hemant Soren.
Their anguish came to the fore after the chief minister ended his speech by explaining what facilities he had planned for those who participated in the movement for the creation of Jharkhand. Soren said the government has planned to pay Rs 3500 per month as pension to those who remained in jail upto three months, Rs 5000 for those whose jail term ranges between 3 months to 6 months, and Rs 7000 per month for those who remained in jail for more than six months. Soren said the government has planned one job for the dependents of those who sacrificed their lives or became physically challenged during the struggle for Jharkhand.
As the chief minister ended saying all this and Shibu Soren started speaking, agitators started interrupting him saying they need proper honour and a respectable amount as pension. They were of the opinion that activists of the Jharkhand movement should get all those facilities that agitators of other states created along with Jharkhand are getting. They said they need proper identity and it is humiliating for them when they are asked for toll tax at the toll plaza.
Though Hemant Soren asked them to consider all of their demands after due consultation with the chairperson of the commission set up to look into the matter of agitators, Jharkhand Andolankaris who had come tying green turban kept on shouting the slogan. They did not allow speaking Shibu Soren and kept on disturbing him till they returned from the venue without completing the programme.
The programme was organised on the second floor of the Project Bhawan secretariat and first of its kind organised in the honour of agitators. A secretariat employee said it was for the first time a government-sponsored programme had flopped in such a way since the creation of Jharkhand in 2000.
