BJP to challenge Hemant govt’s new job policy for grade III & IV staff in court

Ranchi: Opposition BJP is gearing up to take legal recourse to challenge Hemant Soren government’s new recruitment policy for Grade III and IV government jobs, which was passed by the cabinet recently, terming the decision ‘unconstitutional and anti-people’.
Former chief minister and BJP’s national vice-president Raghubar Das on Sunday appealed to the state government to include Hindi in the list of languages which a candidate can opt for at the state-level examinations conducted by Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission. As per the amended recruitment policy, a candidate can opt for any of the 12 regional and tribal languages, including Mundari, Kharia, Ho, Santhali, Khortha, Panchpargania, Bangla, Urdu, Kurmali, Nagpuri, Khurukh and Odia. For district-level examinations, separate language lists will be notified by the government. A candidate will get weightage upon knowing local tradition and customs.
Das said, “While we welcome the inclusion of Bangla and Odia languages, but we want to know why Hindi was excluded? Hindi is our national language and is also spoken in large parts of Jharkhand. So removing it is unconstitutional. Most important, in Jharkhand, all schools are either Hindi or English medium and there isn’t any provision for studies in tribal languages anywhere up till the intermediate level. It is in this light, we urge Hindi to be included.”
He added that BJP is planning to challenge this new amended policy in court if the government doesn’t include Hindi. “As the first step, we are appealing to the Hemant government to rectify its mistake. Otherwise, we will be forced to approach the judiciary,” he said.
Das, whose government had in 2016 come up with local residents policy for jobs, said, “The current policy is solely intended to give jobs to outsiders. In our policy, we have made the provision that a candidate must either be born in this state or should have completed matric from here. But this amended policy says that candidate who appeared for the matric or intermediate exam from here will be eligible to apply in government jobs. This means, any outsider can study Class IX somewhere else and then give the boards here and be eligible for government jobs. In other words, it is opening avenues for outsiders to get jobs here.”