Social activist Medha Patkar leads a march from Zilla School to Equra Mosque chowk to protest against the anti-encroachment drive in Ranchi on Monday; (above) BJP president Nitin Gadkari (right) with chief minister Arjun Munda in the state capital last week. Pictures by Prashant Mitra & PTI

Ranchi, May 2: Chief minister Arjun Munda and his two deputies met Prime Minister Manhoman Singh in New Delhi today to explain that the state government was being unfairly criticised for an anti-encroachment drive initiated at the behest of the high court, their clarification coming on a day activist Medha Patkar chose to descend on Ranchi and stir up passions on the issue.

Munda, who is also understood to have complained against Union minister and Ranchi MP Subodh Kant Sahay for “misleading the public”, told the Prime Minister that the drive against encroachments and illegal occupants of PSU quarters was being undertaken in pursuance of a Jharkhand High Court order.

He also explained that the state had put in place a rehabilitation package for around 11,000 poor households, including 8,000 in Ranchi and 3,000 in Dhanbad where police firing on protesters led to the death of four residents of Kusunda last week.

“We are doing nothing which goes against the rule of law,” Munda emphasised and placed before the Prime Minister several orders of the high court to buttress his point.

Munda has been perturbed over the way the Opposition, particularly the Congress, was politicising the issue. Last week, Sahay announced that after he informed the Union cabinet of the Dhanbad firing, Prime Minister Singh asked home minister P.Chidambaram and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to get a report from the Jharkhand Governor.

On PSU quarters, the chief minister sought to know Delhi’s views and requested the Prime Minister to frame a policy. “If the Centre clears its position vis-a-vis PSUs, it will be better. The state government does not want to interfere in the affairs of PSUs. We deploy our forces only when the PSUs require them,” Munda said after his hour-long meeting with the Prime Minister.

Later, he said, the Prime Minister was fully satisfied with the state’s explanation and asked him to follow the high court order.

“The meeting was necessary as some people on behalf of the government of India were publicising that there was no order from the court regarding removing PSU encroachments and that it was being done at the behest of the state government,” Munda told The Telegraph over telephone from Delhi.

According to Munda, the Prime Minister said they had only discussed the demolition issue after Sahay raised it. “We had merely asked the two ministers to find out the situation in the state. There is no such resolution by the Cabinet,” the chief minister quoted Singh as saying.

The chief minister dismissed the Opposition protests as routine. “These things go on. We have announced a rehabilitation package for the poor and will come out with the ordinance to regularise buildings constructed without a map or in deviation of approved plans,” he said.