Jharkhand Assembly rocked on Bangla issue

The Jharkhand Assembly on March 4 witnessed uproarious scenes over the denial of second official language status to Bangla and some other regional languages.

The scenes lasted for nearly half an hour as members from both Opposition and Treasury benches rushed to the well of the House and raised slogans for granting status of second official language to Bangla, as per the ruling given by the Speaker Alamgir Alam in the last winter session of the Assembly.

During the session in December, 2007, after a heated debate, the Speaker had directed the state government to accord the status of second official language to Bangla within 45 days.

Raising the issue afresh through a call-attention motion, BJP member, Ashok Kumar wanted to know about the action taken by the state government on the Speaker's ruling.

RJD member, Annapurna Devi, Saurabh Narayan Singh (Congress), Raghbar Das (BJP) and the All India Forward Bloc member Aparna Sengupta also raised the issue and supported the demand for Bangla as second official language.

They also wanted to know why the state government was delaying for the formal notification to this effect.