The ruling JMM-Congress-RJD government in Jharkhand posed four questions as Union home minister Amit Shah landed in Ranchi on Friday and is scheduled to address a Vijay Sankalp rally in Chaibasa on Saturday.

“We welcome the Union home minister to Jharkhand but would like him to answer a few questions as he is a key member of the central government and is campaigning for the BJP in Jharkhand,” JMM central general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya said.

“We would like him to spell out his party’s stand on the Jharkhand government’s bill on domicile policy based on the 1932 land records, 27 per cent reservation for the OBC, the state government’s recommendation for the inclusion of Sarna code in the census and the reason behind the Centre not cancelling the gazette declaring Parasnath as an eco-sensitive zone meant for tourists and simply ‘staying’ it,” Bhattacharya said.

Bhattacharya claimed that Union environment and forest minister Bhupender Yadav, reacting to a letter from chief minister Hemant Soren, ordered a stay on ecotourism activities at Sammed Shikhar, a holy site of the Jain community at Parasnath hills in Giridih district.

“Union minister Bhupender Yadav had only stayed activities mentioned in the gazette but why was the gazette not cancelled altogether? We would like the Union home minister to answer why the gazette was brought up in 2019 in the first place. It shows their insensitivity towards the Jain community,” Bhattacharya added.

Jharkhand Congress spokesperson Rakesh Sinha also came up with a similar demand in a media release in Ranchi on Friday evening.

“The Jharkhand government had in 2020 passed a recommendation to the Centre for the inclusion of Sarna code in the decadal census. In November last year, the Jharkhand Assembly had passed a bill notifying 1932 land records as a cut-off year for identifying domiciles of the state and increased the reservation for OBCs. The Centre had to include it in the 9th schedule of the constitution. We would like the home minister to issue a statement whether the Centre would include these recommendations during the ensuing budget session of Parliament,” Sinha said.

The Jharkhand Assembly, during a special session in November last year, cleared two bills, one fixing 1932 land records determining people’s domicile status and another raising reservation to 77 per cent from 60 per cent in different categories.

However, they will only come into effect after the Centre includes them in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

According to the first bill, only those persons whose names or whose ancestors’ names are mentioned in the land survey papers (khatian) conducted in the state in 1932 or before that, will be regarded as local residents of Jharkhand and will receive consequential, social, and cultural benefits, including being entitled to grade 3 and 4 jobs in the state.

The second bill (Jharkhand Reservation in Vacancies of Posts and Services (Amendment) Bill, 2022), will increase reservation in state government jobs for the socially and economically weaker sections of society.

Under the bill, the reservation of the Scheduled Tribes (ST) will go up to 28 per cent (from 26 per cent), OBCs would get 27 per cent (up from 14 per cent) and the Scheduled Castes 12 per cent (up from 10 per cent).

After including 10 per cent reservation for EWS (economically weaker section), the total reservation would go up to 77 per cent from 60 per cent.

The state government argued that they decided to get these two bills in the Ninth Schedule to shield them from “judicial scrutiny”.

Hemant had on several occasions said that the state Assembly had passed a resolution in a special session in 2020 demanding Sarna code to be included in the census and submitted it to the Centre but no decision had been taken on the issue.

Tribals in Jharkhand who are Sarna followers have been fighting for a separate religious identity in India for decades.

The tribals argue that implementation of a separate Sarna religious code in census surveys would allow the tribals to be identified as followers of Sarna faith.

Tribal organisations have claimed that with Centre dropping the “Others” option from the religion column for the next census, Sarna adherents will be forced to either skip the column or declare themselves members of one of the six specified religions — Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh.

On Friday, Shah held a meeting of senior BJP leaders, party MPs and MLAs in Ranchi. He will leave for Chaibasa on Saturday morning and then head to Raipur (Chhattisgarh) from Ranchi.

“The Union minister’s visit to Chaibasa is part of the party strategy to work on the 160-plus seats where it had not fared well in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. All the party workers are excited,” BJP spokesperson and retired IAS officer J.B. Tubid said.

The BJP had lost the Singhbhum seat to Congress’s Geeta Koda by nearly 50,000 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.