A Right to Food Campaign activist has requested the Jharkhand government and state chief electoral officer to ensure migrant workers returning for the Holi festival are linked with MGNREGA jobs to increase voting percentage in the ensuing parliamentary polls.

Incidentally, the Right to Food Campaign is a collective of civil societies, activists and researchers working on the issues of food security and other government welfare programmes in Jharkhand.

“Ration card holders of Jharkhand last year had to face problems of not getting food grains or partially getting food grains leading to anomalies in the public distribution system. A large number of the rural populace due to the food crisis and lack of job opportunities migrate to other cities for jobs. However, they return to their native village during Holi and other major festivals,” states the letter written by James Herenz, an activist associated with the Right to Food Campaign.

James, a native of Latehar who is also state convener of NREGA Watch (raising issues of corruption in MGNREGA implementation in Jharkhand), in the letter to the state chief electoral officer, K. Ravikumar, governor C.P. Radhakrishnan and chief minister Champai Soren on Thursday, suggests, “If the migrants are given gainful employment in MGNREGA near their villages then they would not take the pain to migrate to other cities leaving their families and home. This in turn would increase the voting percentage, especially in rural areas of the state during Lok Sabha polls.”

Jharkhand registered an average voter turnout of 67 per cent in its 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in 2019 general polls. According to the Election Commission notification, Jharkhand Lok Sabha constituencies will vote between May 20 and June 1. Holi will be celebrated on March 25.

“Ration card holders faced problems in getting supplies for several months last year due to a lack of proper allocation of food grains from the government to the ration dealers. The Government of India put a stop to the allocation of food grains because the free food grains which were being distributed under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana to the ration card holders from September to December in the year 2022, were allocated to the dealers. But the dealers did not distribute the said grains among the beneficiaries. There is also a suspicion that most of the dealers black-marketed the said grains,” alleged James.

“Due to non-distribution of ration, if the thumbs of the beneficiaries were not put on the e-PoS machine, then the record of allocation was maintained digitally in the government software, but due to non-distribution, the record of distribution remained pending. Due to this difference in allocation and distribution, the Government of India reduced the quantity of the remaining food grains and the ration was deducted from the share of the Jharkhand government,” the letter claimed.