The grapevine is abuzz with the talk of a possible ministry rejig at the end of the current Assembly session. The chief minister is likely to induct at least two new ministers to fill up vacancies caused by the resignation of Pradeep Maharathy and A.U. Singhdeo.
The names doing the rounds include former minister Bijayshree Routray and youth Biju Janata Dal president Sanjay Das Burma. While Routray is back in the reckoning with corruption charges against him falling flat, Das Burma has been working hard to get the chief minister’s nod.
The youth wing chief is, however, likely to face resistance from rivals breathing down his neck. No wonder he is busy fortifying his defences.
Silvery speech
One wonders how much of finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei’s long winding budget speech in Odia did chief minister Naveen Patnaik understand.
But the poetic flourish with which it was brought to an end must have got his attention. Ghadei wound up his presentation by quoting a stanza from one of the famous poems of freedom fighter Gangadhar Meher with its emphasis on the word nabin (new).
The lines went thus: “Utha bhai utha, nabin aloke, soithile chahin hasuthibe loke. Shubha karmpathe hua agrasar chakshu milibaku nahin absar” (o brother, get up in the new dawn for people will laugh if you keep sleeping. Let’s move forward on the path of duty, there is hardly time to sleep). The clever Ghadei appears to have chosen the lines deliberately to impress his boss.
Face-off
The face-off between Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA Nabin Nanda and Dhenkanal SP Satish Gajbhiye seems set to snowball with NCP going after the district police chief all guns blazing.
Sources said that when the party MLAs met the chief minister and told him that the SP had threatened to arrest Nanda in the wake of an election-related brawl, the latter was aghast. But the party leaders felt that the SP having been posted in the district at the instance of the state government, it was incumbent upon the chief minister to ensure that his behaviour did not offend public representatives.
They made it clear that they were not going to relent on the issue as the prestige of one of their MLAs was involved.
Rajya Sabha bound?
Is state women’s commission chairperson Jyoti Panigrahi angling for a Rajya Sabha ticket? Speculation in this regard has been rife ever since Panigrahi submitted her controversial report on the Pipili gangrape case, which raised the hackles of women activists and Opposition parties alike. The activists, who were shocked by her conclusion that the victim had not been subjected to sexual assault, claim that the women’s panel chief submitted her report in a haste with the sole objective of saving the government’s face and landing herself a Rajya Sabha ticket.
No one should be surprised if the ruling party rewards her with a Rajya Sabha berth. After all she has done a good job,” remarked an activist.
Rout in oblivion
The deposed Athgarh MLA Ramesh Rout appears to have gone into oblivion faster than one can say Jack Robinson. The spotlight having turned on former minister Ranendra Pratap Swain, who is the ruling party’s candidate in the upcoming by-election in Athgarh, everyone seems to have forgotten about Rout who once enjoyed the blessings of powerful Rajya Sabha member Pyari Mohan Mohapatra.
Though the Mohapatra camp is said to have assured Rout that he would be suitably rehabilitated, bjd sources do not attach much importance to such assurances. “Such promises mean nothing. Rout must realise that he has lost it,” said a source.
Footnote
Salvaging honour
The Congress having done badly in the panchayat polls, the party is looking forward to putting up a good show in the Assembly during the ongoing budget session to salvage some of its honour.
The onus of pulling it off in the assembly lies largely on the shoulders of the leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh who, however, does not appear to be in full command of his team.
While his equations with Kantabanjhi MLA Santosh Singh Saluja have been less than friendly for past sometime, some other Congress legislators, too, appear to be unhappy with his way of functioning.
Congress, under the circumstances, cannot hope to put the government on the mat inside the Assembly with any degree of
conviction.
