NEW DELHI: The Shibu Soren faction of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha announced here that his Party would unilaterally announce Abe creation of a separate Jharkhand State on August 15 if

their demand for a separate State Was not conceded by then.

 The proposed Jharkhand state Consist of 25 districts from Bihar, West Bengal, and Orissa, Morcha, vice-president and the party’s chief spokesperson Suraj Mandal told newspersons, of these the largest number of districts-nineteen-are from Bihar.

Certain districts of Madhya Pradesh which are also part of the tribal belt of Jharkhand are being, kept out of the purview of the proposed State for the time being, Mandal said.

In fact, despite mentioning 25 districts the focus of the JMM’s attention appeared restricted as earlier On Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, against y they have been agitating for the last one year.

Mandal, however, did not specify what the course of the Jharkhand movement would be after the unilateral declaration. But observers felt that this could lead to a serious Jaw and order situation if the JMM decided to follow up the declaration by setting up some kind of an administrative set up with functions including the collection of taxes.

Morcha Vice President and party Spokesman Suraj Mandal, MP, hinted clearly in the Capital last week that the Laloo Prasad Yadav Ministry in Bihar already facing rough weather from the breakaway Janata Dal faction will now have to open another front with the JMM in the 19 districts of South Bihar in the coming days.

Demonstrations will be held in all the blocks of the 25 districts on August 1 and a memorandum addressed to the President in support of the demand would be handed to the local Administration.

The Morcha would organize “padyatras” between August Land August 10 to explain to the people the salient features of the demand and of the proposed separate state.

Mandal said the Morcha had been forced to take this drastic step since it felt that neither the Central Government nor the Government of Bihar Were serious about conceding their demand despite promising an autonomous council for the Jharkhand districts from time to time.

Article extracted from this publication >> August 5, 1994