Opposition Ajsu party and the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantric) today announced statewide bandh on March 2 in protest against the Centre not according special category status to Jharkhand while granting it to Seemandhra.
"The party has called the bandh to protest against the Centre ignoring our demand to accord Jharkhand the special category status," Ajsu party spokesman Deo Sharan Bhagat told reporters here.
"We have been staging agitations from August demanding special status to Jharkhand," he said, adding despite the Raghuram Rajan Committee report rating the state as the fifth most backward regions in the country our demand is not yet fulfilled.
He said Ajsu party president and former deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahto in November last year met President Pranab Mukherjee and placed the demand.
Bhagat said demonstrations would be organised at all the district headquarters on February 25 ahead of the bandh, adding party activists today burnt effigies of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in protest.
The opposition Babulal Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantric) has also given a separate bandh call on the same day.
"The party has given a bandh call on March 2 to demand special status category for Jharkhand," JVM-P Principal General Secretary Pradip Yadav said.
"The state meets all the yardsticks under the Gadgil Formula for according a status special category status," Yadav claimed.
