The Sadbhawana Party’s election manifesto roots for recognising Hindi official language in the Terai region.

JANAKPURDHAM, NOV 04 -

The Sadbhawana Party’s election manifesto roots for recognising Hindi as a lingua franca in the Tarai-Madhes belt. But its election publicity materials are either in Bhojpuri, Maithali or other regional languages. SP candidates even don’t use Hindi in their election speeches.

Sanghiya Sadbhawana  Party, led by Anil Kumar Jha, too has proposed Hindi as an official language in the region. He, however, himself has been using Bhojpuri as the medium in his election campaign in Rautahat-1.

Like SP and SPP, most of the Madhes-based parties are for making Hindi as the lingua franca in the central-Tarai region. In contrast, their posters, pamphlets, banners, slogans and election speeches have no space for Hindi. Their mediums of publicity are Maithali, Bhojpuri and Bajjika languages, among others. A total of 13 Mades-based parties are contesting the Constituent Assembly election from the Tarai-Madhes.

Madhesi leaders say they are prioritising regional languages during their publicity campaigns. “Our publicity activities are in regional languages, but when it comes to uniting the entire-Madhes, it is Hindi,” said Laxman Lal Karna, SP vice-chairman.

According to the Census 2011, a total of 4.1 million people reside in the six districts of the central Tarai (Bara, Parsa, Rautahat, Sarlahi, Dhanusha and Mahottari) and they speak around 40 different languages. Of them, the largest section of the people from the region speak Maithali with around 1.37 million, while the group speaking Bhojpuri stands at second with over 970,000 people and Bajjika speaking population is over 790,000.

source: ekantipur.com