Ranchi, Dec. 29: The demand to make Santhali the official or the second official language has struck a hornet’s nest.

Not only is there no unanimity among the tribes on the issue, organisations of the Bengali-speaking residents in the state have staked their own claim for “Bangla” as the state’s second official language. Currently, Hindi remains the official language in Jharkhand and there is no possibility of it getting dislodged in the near future. That has left the race for second official language open.

The issue is unlikely, however, to be resolved soon with proponents of Nagpuria, Mundari, Bangla and Oriya getting rather hot under their collar. The Bengali organisations have been active of late in organising a series of meetings across the state to lobby the cause of Bangla.

At these meetings, the lobbyists point out with satisfaction, even Santhali-speaking people attended and extended their support to the claim of Bangla as the second official language.

The claim of Jharkhand Bangabhashi Samiti that 42 per cent of the state’s population speak Bangla appears to be extravagant.

But the Samiti’s working president, M.N. Choudhury, reiterated the claim and said that the figure includes those Santhals adjoining West Bengal, who have studied Bangla and are comfortable with the language, being able to read, write and speak the language. Many of them also use the Bangla script while writing Santhali, he said.

Choudhury points out that in large parts of Santhal Pargana, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Singhbhum, Ranchi and Hazaribagh, the medium of instruction remains Bangla or the language is taught as the second language. Therefore their claim that 42 per cent of the state’s population are conversant with the language is not misplaced. He blamed the government for taking no interest in the issue.

“Our samiti along with Ranchi University was entrusted to translate CBSE books into Bengali and the work has progressed considerably. But recently the government has floated a tender notice inviting bids for producing these same books on a turn-key basis. How can they do it without canceling our assignment?” he said.

Although unified Bihar had a Bengali Academy, the Jharkhand government is yet to take any initiative in this direction.

Choudhury confirmed that on several occasions the government has been urged to constitute the Academy and construct a Rabindra Bhavan in the state capital. But the requests have all fallen on deaf ears.

Rebel raid: Police are continuing combing operations against the MCC in the neighbouring villages of the Patratu area, reports our Ranchi correspondent.