The Jharkhand Legislative Assembly that otherwise witnesses seasoned and old Samaritans debating over issues today saw two young turks stealing the show with their arguments over tangible and intangible growth in the State, which was appreciated by Speaker Dinesh Oraon and other lawmakers equally. BJP MLA from Godda, Amit Mandal, presented a rosy picture of the Government works and policies saying that the State is witnessing growth on all fronts while JMM’s Kunal Sarangi, an MLA from Baharagora, countered his claim with all wit and humour.
The two leaders debated during the second half of assembly proceedings of the third day of Budget Session with the House passing Rs 2,239 crore Supplementary Budget. Mandal speaking for motion supported the government supplementary budget move; Sarangi spoke for cut motion of the supplementary budget.
“Tangible benefits are those measured in monetary terms and intangible benefits cannot be measured in monetary terms. Improvement in lifestyle of individual due to construction of roads, electricity connection and industries comes under tangible benefits, while improvement in lifestyle of individual such as health, life expectancy comes under intangible benefits,” said Mandal speaking against the cut motion.
Both Mandal and Sarangi are first time MLAs coming from political families having engineering and MBA background.
Mandal, left the job of a multinational company to join politics after death of his father Raghunandan Mandal, who represented Godda assembly, while Sarangi son of Dr Dinesh Sarangi, one of the senior BJP leaders and former Health Minister of the State. Sarangi is a graduate from NIT Jamshedpur too and has done his MBA from UK. Mandal has also studied abroad.
Speaking in support of the supplementary budget, Mandal said: “The average growth rate of state is 8.7 per cent. The Government is focusing on both tangible and intangible growth. As the Government believes in inclusive growth special focus is given to backward districts.”
The BJP MLA, who spoke for more than 10 minutes stated the Raghubar Das government has given special attention to health schemes resulting in improvement in infant mortality rate (IMR), crude death rate, crude birth rate and other health indicators. Mandal advised the opposition benches for having constructive criticism of Government.
The Godda MLA also talked about agricultural growth rate, health facilities, women empowerment and schemes of rural development that the Government is running in the State for the last four years. He also said that one needs to make people learn the art and science of self-sustenance rather than feeding them every day.
Kunal Sarangi, countering government’s development claim stated that Jharkhand is at lowest at various health indicators. Sarangi said: “In human development index (2018), Jharkhand is at 36th position out of 38 states and union territories, while the State stood at 26th position out of 28 States. Similarly, male literacy rate is 76 percent (national average) while in State the male literacy rate is 66 percent. Only 30 percent of population in country are living below poverty line, while in Jharkhand around 40 per cent population is below poverty line,” added Sarangi.
The JMM MLA asked the government not to give pictures which are not real. He gave the example of Baliya Soren, an engineering graduate who as per government claim has received a package of Rs 11 lakh at one-day global skill summit, which was recently in State Capital. Sarangi said: “As per state government claim, Soren received an offer of Rs 11 lakh at skill summit, but the truth is that Soren an engineering graduate from BIT Sindri was placed by the placement cell of the institute.”
Sarangi termed the Raghubar government as government of advertisement with State Government spending Rs 323 crore of advertisement, while on other hand it has no money to take care of para teachers’ demand which has lead to death of 22 para teachers.
The two young leaders spoke in favour of their parties, but it was appreciated by assembly speaker Dinesh Oraon and leaders from both opposition as well as treasury benches.