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Jharkhand CM Soren: Centre is diverting attention from real issues
In the state government’s reply on the concluding day of the winter session of the Jharkhand assembly, the chief minister alleged that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre was acting in a partisan manner against non-BJP-ruled states.
Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on Thursday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, saying the latter deliberately chooses unnecessary subjects for discussion in Parliament just to divert people’s attention from real issues and their failures.
In the state government’s reply on the concluding day of the winter session of the Jharkhand assembly, the chief minister alleged that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre was acting in a partisan manner against non-BJP-ruled states.
Referring to the Indigo crisis and the recent Delhi bomb blast, the chief minister said, “What is their agenda in the Parliament? Vande Mataram. How much poverty does such a discussion alleviate? How many jobs does it create?”
“People were lined up at the airport. There were reports of bodies decomposing at the airport. Brides and grooms missed marriages. At the time when we saw the Indigo crisis, they chose to discuss Vande Mataram. They do it deliberately to divert people’s attention from real issues and their failures,” the chief minister said.
Speaking in the absence of the BJP legislators, who had left the House well before he started his speech, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) president questioned the Centre over a host of issues, including the Delhi bomb blast, its stand on SIR, and the Tejas accident at the airshow in Dubai, among others.
“They keep spewing venom wherever they go. What are they saying in the context of the SIR? If there’s any infiltration, then they should answer whose responsibility it is to guard our borders. There was information about some chemicals used in bomb-making being stored in Delhi. Why didn’t they act promptly? Pilots lost their lives in an airshow. In the Ahmedabad accidents, they pinned the blame on the pilot when reports suggested the company was at fault,” the chief minister said.
Accusing the BJP of having vitiated the social atmosphere in the country, the JMM leader said the country was witnessing more internal conflicts under this regime than on the international border. The chief minister also alleged that the Centre wants to give tribal resources to corporates.
“Maximum security personnel are deployed in tribal areas. Why so? Because they have an eye on their resources, which they want to give to the corporates. The same situation prevails in tribal areas across MP, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. More incidents (of conflict) are reported in these areas than at the border,” Soren said.
In reply to the BJP’s allegation that the state government was not able to pay scholarships to students, the chief minister countered, saying the Centre has reduced scholarship schemes in certain categories by up to ninety per cent.
