A five-member delegation of the Jharkhand government’s state coordination committee on Sunday evening handed a memorandum for the governor to the Raj Bhavan.

The memorandum urged governor C.P. Radhakrishnan to send the observations on three “important bills” which had been returned by the Raj Bhavan.

The delegation, however, could not meet the governor or any senior official of the governor’s office.

“We had emailed and also given a letter at Raj Bhavan on Friday seeking an appointment with the governor on Sunday. But there was no one available at the office and we had to hand over the memorandum at the gate,” said Vinod Pandey, JMM leader and member of the state coordination committee.

“We want to meet the governor and apprise him about the three important bills — 1932 Khatiyan (land survey) based definition of locals bill, the anti-lynching bill and the bill pertaining to raising the reservation quota of OBC communities. All these bills had been returned by the Raj Bhavan without sending the necessary observations of the governor (both former governor Ramesh Bais and incumbent C.P. Radhakrishnan). We want the Raj Bhavan to send the observations so that the necessary corrections can be done and reintroduced in the Assembly and send it again to Raj Bhavan,” said Pandey.

Incidentally, the chief minister’s secretariat had in July issued a communique informing about the government’s intent to re-introduce the 1932 Khatiyan-based definition of locals’ bill, the anti-lynching bill, and the bill pertaining to raising the quota of reservations of OBC communities in the monsoon session of the state Assembly.

The communique had then informed that the government had requested the Raj Bhavan secretariat to forward the observations made by the governors to the Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha secretariat and the state government. “Bills passed by the Assembly are sent to the Raj Bhavan for the governor’s assent. The copy of the bills consists of the governor’s observations in case the Raj Bhavan consents to them or has some objections. However, in the case of these bills, the governor’s observations are missing. Since the government intends to re-introduce the bills, the governor’s observations have been sought,” the statement read.

The Jharkhand Definition for Local Persons and for Extending Consequential, Social, Cultural and Other Benefits to Such Local Persons Bill of 2022 has set the land survey settlements of 1932 as the benchmark for identifying the locals of the state. The bill was passed in an extended monsoon session last year, but returned by the then governor Ramesh Bais stating that it violated the Constitutional provisions. Likewise, the Jharkhand (Prevention of Violence and Mob Lynching) Bill of 2021 passed in the winter session of 2021 was returned by Bais seeking clarity on the definition of mob.

Similarly, the OBC reservation bill, which looks to increase the quota of reservations for OBC communities to 27% from 14% and eventually increase the reservations in state government jobs to 77%, was returned by Radhakrishnan earlier this year after receiving the opinion of the Attorney General of India.

Incidentally, the state coordination committee is led by JMM patriarch and Rajya Sabha MP Shibu Soren. The team members include senior leaders from the JMM, the Congress and the RJD. It was constituted to advise the government on important issues.

The development holds significance as these issues have been at the core of the political narrative of the ruling dispensation besides being electoral promises in the 2019 Assembly polls.