Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren on Wednesday called Narendra Modi a “jumla (rhetoric-reliant) Prime Minister” who spoke “safed jhut (white lies)”.

“A few months back I had listened to the interview of our Prime Minister in a reputed news channel like the BBC in which he claimed about the Ayushman Bharat health scheme wherein he said the state governments do not have to spend anything on it and the cost is entirely borne by the central government. I could not believe that a Prime Minister spoke such lies on a global news channel,” Soren said.

He added: “I enquired with my officials and was told that the Centre-state ratio is 60:40 under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.”

Soren later announced that his government would soon launch a fresh holding tax policy to allow exemptions on houses with an area of 350sqft, up from 250sqft. The move is expected to directly benefit 85,000 families. “Similarly, our government will soon start work on providing free electricity to those consuming 100 units,” the chief minister said.

Soren accused the BJP of trying to destabilise his government by attempting to wean away MLAs. He said the BJP was spreading propaganda about “mining loot” in the state. “If we look at the revenue of the mines department from 2016 till now, there was a revenue of Rs 4,120.05 crore in 2016-17, Rs 5,743.46 crore in 2017-18, while it increased to Rs 6,059.2 crore in the last financial year. In the 14 years of its rule, the BJP had never worked on revenue collection from the road construction department.

“Our government has made a revenue collection of Rs 150 crore in just two months. Our government has collected revenue of crores from the forest department. If we keep on moving in this direction then in one decade we will not be dependent on the Centre,” said Soren.

He said a local recruitment policy was also on the agenda but claimed that if the plan was based on land rights, it would not stand in court. He assured that the government would take a decision keeping the best interest of the state in mind.

The chief minister said that a requisition had been sent to the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission for appointments to 7,552 posts. Ads have been issued by the commission for 2,898 posts. He assured that within a month, the government will issue recruitment ads for 20,000 posts in various departments.

Earlier, in the day, Jharkhand parliamentary affairs minister Alamgir Alam had announced that from April 1, families of hit-and-run case victims will get a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each. The minister made the announcement on the question asked by BJP MLAs Raj Sinha and Biranchi Narayan.

Raj Sinha had asked the government whether the hit–and-run compensation scheme was applicable in the state. Under this, the government gives a compensation of Rs 12,500 to a person injured in an incident in the state and Rs 25,000 to the next of kin of a deceased victim. Biranchi Narayan said the central government gives compensation of up to Rs 4 lakh in such cases.

“If the Centre gives Rs 3 lakh, then the state government will add Rs 1 lakh to make it Rs 4 lakh. On the other hand, if the Centre gives Rs 2 lakh, then the state government will give Rs 2 lakh to it,” Alam said.

The government on Wednesday withdrew the Pandit Raghunath Murmu Tribal University Bill in the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly. The governor’s secretariat had returned this bill due to some error. The bill was withdrawn by the Assembly under Rule 110 of the Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly.

The Pandit Raghunath Murmu Tribal University Bill 2021 was passed by voice vote in the winter session on 22 December 2021 and was billed as the first tribal university in the region.