PATNA: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asserted that Bihar and Jharkhand are like brothers. This came a week after Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren courted controversy when he said that those speaking in the regional dialects of Bihar- Bhojpuri and Magahi- had tortured people of erstwhile Bihar (now Jharkhand) during the movement for a separate state.
Addressing the media after his weekly 'Janta ke Darwar me Mukhyamantri', CM Kumar said that the people of Bihar have immense love for Jharkhand and vice-versa. "Jharkhand was carved out from Bihar in 2000 and since then both states are like brothers. I do not understand statements which people make for the sake of politics," he said in a veiled response to Soren's controversial statement.
The chief minister further asserted that there is no need to divide the people on the basis of the lines of language, further adding that the two states belong to the same family and still have a love for each other. "Earlier people of Bihar used to go to Jharkhand for jobs. There was some despair when the state got bifurcated," the CM said.
Stepping up his objection to Soren's statement, he said, "People speaking the same language need not stay in that particular state. They live in different states. If someone is making such statements for political gains, I cannot be bothered about it. I do not endorse such views but I can tell for certain that we have respect for Jharkhand."
Last week, chief minister Hemant Soren had said that Bhojpuri and Magahi speaking people of erstwhile Bihar had tortured men and women living in areas that fall under Jharkhand during the movement for a separate state. In a zoom interview, Soren said that the two dialects were not the regional languages of Jharkhand. "Those who speak these borrowed languages showed dominance," he alleged, adding that he cannot allow 'Biharikaran' of Jharkhand.
As per the data, Bhojpuri is spoken by nearly 52,245,300 native people of this language followed by Magahi spoken by approximately 14,035,600 people.