PATNA (Bihar) PTI: The Tharkh and Mukti Morcha IMM) virtually split Sunday with the rival factions led by the Morcha president Shibu Soren and dissident leader Krishna Mardi member of parliament from lower house striking postures of an all-out confrontation.
While the Shibu Soren-Suraj Mandal faction committed itself to withdrawing from the national front and boycotting presidential elections as well as the voting on the no-confidence motion against the Narsimha Rao government Mardi reiterated that his faction would remain with the national front and support G Swell as also the no-confidence motion.
Mardi said that no issue save the presidential election was discussed in the executive committee meeting and even on that the two sides had taken divergent positions.
Mandal had misled the press by asserting that the meeting had taken decisions on the three issues he told a press conference and demanded that Soren party vice president Suraj Mandal and general secretary Shailendra Mehta resign from parliament and organisational positions or having betrayed the Jharkhand cause
His faction Mardi said would mobilise public opinion to hound renegades out of the Jharkhand politics for exploiting the innocent people.
Mardi accused Mandal of amassing unaccounted wealth by projecting himself earlier as the closest ally of the Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav who according to him was totally committed to the creation of a separate Jharkhand state. The center on the other hand was passing the buck on the chief minister for allegedly being a hindrance in the creation of a separate state as it wants to scuttle the movement. The scant regard the center has for the Tharkhand cause is evident from the fact that even after the lapse of several months since the submission of the report of the committee on Jharkhand matters (COJM) the Indian government is yet to make a statement on it in the Lok sabha the JMM MP remarked
Article extracted from this publication >> July 24, 1992
