Bhubaneswar, July 2: Traffic came to a grinding halt and shops and business establishments downed shutters in eight districts of the backward Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) belt today as the Congress called a 12-hour dawn-to-dusk strike to demand land pattas (rights) for tribal residents of the area. The party also registered its protest against the arrest of former Nabarangpur MP Pradeep Majhi, who has been leading a campaign on the issue.
Day-to-day activities were badly hit in Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri, Balangir and Sonepur districts where vehicles stayed off the road and business establishments remained closed. Shops, even in interior areas of many of these districts, downed shutters.
Congress activists staged roadblocks at many places by burning tyres. Tension mounted in Rayagada with strike supporters tried to force their way into the office of the district collector. They picketed outside courts in Balangir and some other districts. However, emergency services were excluded from the ambit of the strike call. Police were deployed in sensitive areas to ward off possible violence. Senior Congress leaders described the strike as a complete success. "The state government is taking undue credit by distributing land pattas to tribal residents of the KBK belt. However, the truth is that it has not been successful in implementing the Forest Rights Act properly. They intentionally arrested our former MP Pradeep Majhi, who is fighting for the rights of tribal people," said former union minister and party veteran Bhakta Charan Das.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee President Prasad Harichandan claimed that the shutdown was successful as people supported it spontaneously. On the other hand, former minister and BJD leader, Rabi Narayan Nanda accused the Congress of shedding crocodile tears for tribal people. "Our government has worked the most for the tribal people and is the first to have allotted them land pattas under the Forest Rights Act," he said. BJD sources said Congress was trying to make an issue out of a non-issue as its defeat in successive elections had made the party desperate.