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Tewari pledges Congress support for Jharkhand

Former Union minister and senior Congress leader K K Tewari today pledged to strive for the creation of the Jharkhand state comprising 18 districts of South Bihar.

Tewari, who is contesting the prestigious Ranchi parliamentary seat as a Congress nominee, charged the Bharatiya Janata Party with having ''betrayed'' the people of this area by not taking up the Bihar State Reorganisation Bill, 1998, in the twelfth Lok Sabha despite his party extending an open invitation.

Clarifying that the Congress was not going to compromise on the issue of statehood, he said the party's alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal was a part of its effort to ''prevent the country from going into the hands of the communal forces.''

He said the failure of the BJP member in the dissolved twelfth Lok Sabha, Ram Tahal Choudhary, would be reflected in the coming election. The Congress, he claimed, will regain its traditional glory.

Meanwhile, the BJP's national general secretary K N Govindacharya has said that the National Democratic Alliance will complete its unfinished agenda of creating the Vananchal state, if it comes to power.

Govindacharya, who was addressing a meeting of the party's regional election campaign committee, said that development, industrialisation, growing extremism and corruption would be some of the main issues on which the party would approach voters in Bihar.

He added that the BJP would apprise the people of the fact that had the BJP-led coalition not been pulled down by vested interests the new state would have been a reality by now.

Meanwhile, sensing its strength in this tribal belt and realising the initial edge which its nominees have over others in the absence of a combined opposition and with the main rival Congress remaining a divided house, the BJP's leadership has provided two choppers to the Vananchal committee for ferrying top party leaders and star campaigners to the thirteen constituencies of South Bihar which goes to the polls on September 18.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Home Minister L K Advani, Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan, BJP president Kushabhau Thakre and actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha are some of the star campaigners in this tribal belt.

According to party leaders the prime minister was likely to hit the campaign trail in South Bihar from September 11. During his two-day stay he will participate in rallies at Ranchi and Hazaribagh while Advani will be in the region for three days from September 12. Thakre would address a series of rallies during his three-day stay from September 10 while Shatrughan Sinha will be in the region for four days from September 11. A horde of state party leaders, including Kailashpati Mishra, Shushil Kumar Modi and Nand Kishore Yadav will also be campaigning actively.

UNI

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