The JMM-Congress-RJD coalition government in Jharkhand held the maiden meeting of the state coordination committee on Saturday evening.

The meeting comes at a time the 2024 general elections are less than a year away and state Assembly polls are scheduled to be held later the same year.

Set up in November last year, the coordination committee is an advisory body with no legislative powers that is expected to oversee the implementation of development work by the government. However, it is effectively a monitoring body of coalition partners.

After the meeting, which was chaired by JMM supremo and Rajya Sabha MP Shibu Soren, JMM central general secretary and member of the committee Vinod Pandey interacted with the media and blamed the BJP for obstructing the implementation of decisions taken by the state government either with the help of “Raj Bhavan” or “the high court”.

“The state government either through its cabinet or the Assembly has taken decisions in accordance with public sentiments for the benefit of the masses. But the BJP, sometimes with the help of the high court and sometimes with the help of the Raj Bhavan, hinders the implementation of these decisions,” Pandey said.

“We will suggest to the chief minister that the important bills that were passed by the state Assembly and returned by the governor — especially the ones defining local residents, reservation in recruitment policy, OBC reservation and prevention of mob lynching — should be sent back to the governor after necessary corrections,” Pandey added.

The coordination committee has also decided to meet President Droupadi Murmu on implementing the Sarna religion code, a resolution on which was passed by the Jharkhand Assembly and sent to the President and Centre in 2020 but is yet to be considered.

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

The tribals argue that the implementation of a separate Sarna religious code in census surveys would allow them to be identified as the followers of the Sarna faith. Tribal organisations have claimed that with the Centre dropping the “Others” option from the religion column for the next census, Sarna adherents would be forced to either skip the column or declare themselves members of one of the six specified religions — Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.

Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren had in June last year said the state Assembly had passed a resolution in a special session in 2020 demanding the Sarna dharma code to be included in the census and submitted it to the Centre but no decision was taken by the BJP-led central government.

The other important suggestions of the committee include making an alternative arrangement to ensure the functioning of various commissions which could be formed due to the absence of the Leader of the Opposition in the Jharkhand Assembly.