SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Dec. 10: The issue over allotting a dedicated namaz room for Muslim MLAs and employees in the Jharkhand assembly premises, which had disrupted the entire Monsoon session proceedings, is yet to be resolved even as the winter session is scheduled to begin from December 16.
The seven-member all-party committee formed by Speaker Rabindranath Mahto on the last day of the monsoon session is yet to submit its report. The committee was supposed to submit its report within 45 days.
The Assembly notification had led to a political storm in the state with the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party consistently disrupting proceedings in the House during the monsoon session, doing Kirtan and chanting Hanuman Chalisa.
Many of the BJP MLAs had also demanded that the assembly lunch break be called thirty minutes earlier so that the MLAs could go and pray to Lord Hanuman.
The Speaker said on Friday that the committee has not yet submitted its report. “The committee has sought reports from other states in this regard,” he added. JMM MLA Stephen Marandi, the convenor of the committee, could not be contacted.
Deepika Pandey Singh, one of the members of the committee, said that the committee held the meeting once which she could not attend. “Anyway, it is a non-issue which the BJP raised unnecessarily, stepping aside real issues plaguing the State,” she said.
BJP MLA CP Singh said that the committee is not at all serious about the issue. “We will decide on it while chalking out our floor strategy at the party’s legislature party meeting on December 15,” he added.
The Speaker had taken the decision to form an all-party meeting after senior Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) legislator Sarfaraz Ahmed proposed forming a committee in the House to look into the issue in order to break the deadlock.
Senior JMM legislator Stephen Marandi happens to be the convenor of the committee, while other members include Sarfaraz Ahmed, Pradeep Yadav, Neelkanth Munda, Vinod Singh, Lambodar Mahto and Deepika Pandey Singh.
A PIL had also been filed against the decision by petitioner Bhairav Singh in Jharkhand High Court, saying that the assembly is a public building and hence allocating a special room for namaz would be against the principle of secularism enshrined in the Indian constitution.
The Jharkhand Speaker’s decision had led to similar demands in Bihar and UP as well. An MLA in Bihar, named Hari Bhushan Thakur Bachol, had demanded a special room to be allocated to Hindu MLAs so that they can recite verses from Bhagavad Gita, and chant the Hanuman Chalisa. An MLA of the Samajwadi Party had demanded a room to offer Nawaz in the UP Vidhan Sabha.
