Bhubaneswar, June 17: The ministry rejig effected by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today came as fresh proof that election-bound Odisha remains a low priority state for the Congress-led UPA.
The exercise has left Odias feeling dejected as neither did the expected elevation of Srikant Jena, the only one from the state in the Union ministry, to the cabinet rank take place nor was any new face from Odisha inducted.
Since this is being seen as the last rejig and expansion of the Union council of ministers before 2014 polls, state Congress leaders are worried that it might provide fresh ammunition to the BJD against the UPA. Expectations were running high on the eve of the exercise with a sizeable section of state Congress leaders almost certain about Jena, who is a minister of state (independent charge), statistics and programme implementation, getting a cabinet berth.
The names of veteran tribal leader and former chief minister Hemanand Biswal and Nowrangpur MP Pradeep Majhi were also doing the rounds as probables for inclusion in the ministry.
Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Jaydev Jena fought hard to hide his feeling of disappointment. “We would have been happy had Jena been elevated to the cabinet rank and some others included in the ministry,” he said. Former PCC chief Niranjan Patnaik, too, echoed similar feelings.
Odisha seems to have been given a raw deal by successive Congress-led governments at the Centre as far as selection of cabinet ministers is concerned. While Harekrushna Mahtab was the first cabinet minister from the state in the Jawaharlal Nehru government between 1950 and 1952, it was after a gap of 25 years that the state again found representations in the Union cabinet.
In the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government in 1977, Biju Patnaik and Rabi Ray were inducted as cabinet ministers.
In 1980, when Indira Gandhi captured power, former Odisha chief minister and present governor of Assam J.B. Patnaik was made a cabinet minister for a brief period.
In 1989, former chief minister Nilamani Routray got a cabinet berth in the Janata Dal-led V.P. Singh government.
Between 1996 and 1998, in the Third Front governments, led by the Janata Dal, Srikant Jena enjoyed the cabinet rank, while the BJP-led NDA regimesaw Naveen Patnaik discharging the duties of a cabinet minister. Others from Odisha, who served as cabinet ministers during the NDA’s two tenures at the Centre, were BJD veteran Arjun Sethi and BJP’s Jual Oram.
