Bhubaneswar, June 1: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his one-time bete noire, Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh, appear keen to bury the hatchet.
The two leaders, who have sparred in the past over high-voltage issues such as Posco, Vedanta and the Polavaram projects, were seen cosy during the inauguration of the North-East Biodiversity gallery at the Regional Museum of Natural History here today.
As the audience watched, the amused Ramesh drew his chair closer to the chief minister on the dais and sought to engage him in a whispered conversation. Naveen, reticent as usual, kept nodding his head with a smile on his face.
Ramesh was at pains to convince the gathering that his anti-Orissa image was nothing but creation of the media which had been playing up issues such as, Posco. “This time again they asked me about it as if nothing else is important. I told them there was life beyond Posco,” said Ramesh.
Ramesh had another dig at the media. “I have said yes more times than I have said no. But, they have reported only my nos. Let me tell you I am not the enemy of Orissa,” said Ramesh. He told the audience that he was deeply in love with Orissa’s culture and began his day with the Geet Govinda, rendered by Pandit Raghunath Panigrahy.
This, incidentally, was not the first occasion when the Union minister sought to dispel the impression that he was deliberately trying to put hurdles in the way of Orissa’s industrial development. In fact, during his last visit to the state about a month ago, he had lashed out at his critics accusing them of deliberate propaganda against him even though he was doing his best to help Orissa. Soon after the visit, he gave his nod to the 12-million-tonne Posco project, a major bone of contention between his ministry and Orissa, as if to prove that he was a genuine well-wisher of the Oriyas.
However, sources wondered whether the Union minister would extend the same kind of favour to some other major projects caught in a logjam.
“We are still not sure what fate of the Vedanta expansion project would be and what would become of the Niyamgiri mining project which was nixed by the minister sometimes ago,” said an official. Before Posco, the only other major project cleared by Ramesh was the Brutang irrigation scheme in Nayagarh district, he said.