Surya Singh Besra quits JPP

Jamshedpur, Jul 7: Founder of the Jharkhand Peoples' Party (JPP) and party general secretary Surya Singh Besra has resigned from his post and the primary membership of the party today.

In his resignation letter addressed to party president B P Kesri, Mr Besra said that he had already joined the Jharkhand Vikash Morcha (JVM), led by former Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi and the former deputy Chief Minister Stephen Marandi on April 12, and became the central committee member of the JVM.

He said the JVM, now a non-political forum, would soon be converted to a political party.

''I am submitting my resignation from the post of the general secretary and as well as from the primary membership of the JPP on moral grounds as I cannot continue two posts in two parties,'' Mr Besra, a former MLA, said in the letter.

Significantly, Mr Besra has founded All Jharkhand Students' Union (AJSU) in 1986 and floated the JPP in September 30, 1991 as political wing of the AJSU.

Mr Besra took a decisive role in the Jharkhand movement in late eighties and early nineties as a leader of the AJSU and then the JPP.

He also resigned from the then Bihar legislative assembly on August 12, 1991 demanding the formation of a separate Jharkhand state.

Mr Besra said in the present political scenario JVM is emerging as an alternative force of the ruling NDA in Jharkhand and he thought it was judicious to join the morcha to dethrone the ''corrupt'' NDA government led by the BJP.

UNI