Dumka: The talks between district officials from Birbhum West Bengal ) and Dumka over the Massanjore dam impasse remained inconclusive on Wednesday and officials expect the second round of discussions between the deputy commissioners (DCs) of the neighbouring districts to yield results.The two states have been at loggerheads since Friday, when West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress government painted the walls of the dam in Dumka district in Jharkhand, where BJP is in power. In retaliation, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), BJP’s youth wing, erased ‘Bengal’ and painted ‘Jharkhand’ on the dam gate. They also covered the ‘Biswa Bangla’ logo with a Jharkhand one.Two senior officials of Birbhum district — additional district magistrate (ADM) R K Jha and executive engineer of the West Bengal irrigation and waterways department Kingsuk Mondal — met Dumka deputy commissioner Mukesh Kumar on Wednesday on instance of Birbhum DC Moumita Godara to register their grievances about ‘law and order problem’ at the site.Refusing to divulge any details, the officials from Bengal said: “We will submit a report about today's meeting to our district magistrate.”At the meeting, Kumar expressed displeasure over the ‘high-handedness’ of the Bengal administration, which erected the welcome gate along the state highway and installed hoardings displaying its logo without obtaining permission from the local authorities.“Our displeasure towards the welcome gates erected by the Bengal government at Massanjore along the state highway, which falls under Jharkhand’s jurisdiction, and the Bengal police’s move to sneak into the locality have been conveyed to the Bengal administration,” Kumar said. He added that the talks were in the positive direction.Kumar said he was looking forward for another round of talks with his Birbhum counterpart in the near future. He said the situation must not be viewed to be the instance of conflict between the state governments or the administrations of either side.The issue took a political turn over the week with the state minister and Dumka MLA Lois Marandi justifying BJP cadres’ conduct and raising the issue of the ‘violation’ of the tripartite agreement between the Centre and the governments of the West Bengal and undivided Bihar decades ago when the dam was built.Godda BJP legislator Nishikant Dubey , who has for long been raising the issue of deprivation of local displaced people of the dam, said the entire benefits including the irrigation and power generated through its hydroelectric unit is used by Bengal. Dubey raised the matter in Parliament blaming the Mamata Banerjee government of West Bengal for neglecting Jharkhand’s interests.BJP’s Dumka president Nivas Mandal , however, stuck to his defiance. “We have nothing to do with the meeting between district administrations. We have conveyed our decision to the Jharkhand CM and the Prime Minister of India. We expect that they would act accordingly.”

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