SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Mar 28: The Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Sangh (RCMS), a major coal labour organization of the Congress Party divided over the name change.
At a meeting, the officials changed the name of RCMS to Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Union (RCMU).
Bermo MLA Jaymangal Singh alias Anup Singh, son of former minister Rajendra Prasad Singh, AK Jha and Santosh Mahto were unanimously elected as president, general secretary and treasurer respectively of the new union. They were on the same post in RCMS.
For opposing the name change of the 80 years old Sangh, two senior leaders KB Singh and Suresh Chandra Jha (both vice-presidents) were expelled from the organization.
In protest, the organizing secretary of the Indian National Mines Federation and Congress National Working Committee (WCC) member Santosh Singh has also resigned from RCMS.
Santosh Singh is senior Congress leader and was the election in-charge of the party in recently concluded Uttrakhand assembly polls.
Sources said as Anup Singh put up the proposal for name change in the meeting on Sunday, Suresh Chandra Jha, KB Singh and others strongly opposed it.
“We have not expelled them from RCMS albeit Anup Singh, AK Jha and Santosh Mahto have made their new house (RCMU) in place of RCMS. Now, we would stake a claim on RCMS office infrastructure, property and bank accounts,” said Suresh Chandra Jha, who is a senior leader of RCMS and has massive influence among the miners in the Mugma area of BCCL and ECL collieries.
Suresh Chandra Jha claimed that since the president, general secretary and treasurer have left the Sangh, a meeting would be called soon to elect new office bearers in their place.
At present, four factions are claiming to be the real RCMS of Congress Party namely RCMAS Rajendra, RCMS Dadai Dubey (former Dhanbad MP), RCMS Lalan Choubey, and RCMS Tripathi. The matter is pending in court. Due to four factions, the ministry of coal has removed the INTUC of Congress from JBCCI.
The new dispute in RCMS has also hit hard the compromise attempt of Congress president Sonia Gandhi who had set up a two-member committee of Mallikarjun Kharge (MP) and former chief minister of Madya Pradesh Digvijaya Singh (MP) in 2021 to get a truce between Dadai Dubey faction and Rajendra Singh faction of INTUC. The committee had even held a meeting of both factions in Delhi.
Meanwhile, Lalan Choubey, who also runs a faction of RCMS, said that Anup Singh has no authority to change the name of RCMS as he is not its member since 2009.
