Ranchi
Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren on Tuesday proposed the establishment of a Tribal Regiment in the Indian Army saying its formation would provide a distinct identity to tribals across the country including within the force.
During his meeting with General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Command Lt Gen Ramchandra Tiwari and other senior officials of the Army on Tuesday, the CM asked them to work out effective ways and means to facilitate greater recruitment of tribals in the Army and other wings of Indian Armed Forces.
The Chief Minister pointed out that the tribal youth from Jharkhand had been serving in the Indian Army for many years and urged the Army to provide more opportunities for the tribal youth to take them ahead.
Lieutenant General Tiwari assured the Chief Minister that the Army, through its local GOC, would offer training and other support to prepare tribals for Army recruitment.
For his part, the GOC-in-C proposed the formation of the Ecological Territorial Army in Jharkhand to focus on environmental conservation. Champai assured all possible help by his government to set it up. This wing of the Army comprising retired personnel carries out plantation works. The CM is interested in engaging them in mining zones, degraded forest areas and such other places across the State.
The Chief Minister also held separate review meetings with senior officials of health and food and civil supplies departments and directed them to ensure that the poor, especially the tribals based in far flung areas, received due benefits of each of the schemes.
While holding another review meeting with senior officials of Education Department, he stressed on facilitating education to tribal children in their mother tongue. He also participated in a workshop to facilitate land lease deeds to forest dwellers and strict implementation Forest Rights Act.
After having won all five Lok Sabha seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the State in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, the JMM and its ally Congress are surcharged. They are now aiming to grab all the 28 ST assembly seats during the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections set to be held in less than six months.
However, BJP spokesman Pratul Shahdeo argued that during the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, the NDA (BJP and AJSU) candidates were ahead of their rivals in 52 assembly segments. The JMM candidate had to eat a humble pie in the Saraikela assembly segment, which is represented by Chief Minister Champai Soren himself. The NDA has begun full-fledged preparations for the upcoming assembly elections.
JMM spokesman Supriyo Bhattacharya asserted that the NDA will not be able to win even 10 assembly seats. He argued that the permutations and combinations of Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in Jharkhand have always been quite different from each other. The results of the 2019 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in Jharkhand are a glaring example, he pointed out.
