Empty promise

Politicians are prone to making rosy promises that often remain unrealised. For them, it is all part of the job. But people, having seen them falter on their assurances time and again, have learnt to take their populist announcements with a pinch of salt. 

So, when forest and environment minister Bikram Kesari Arukh announced on the foundation day of Nandankanan Zoo that the defunct toy train at the park would be repaired and made operational shortly, many in the assorted gathering of tourists and picnickers yawned and shrugged. 

That the minister was making just another populist announcement without checking facts became evident soon after when the secretary of the department feigned ignorance about any such steps being taken. 

The minister, though, was spared the blushes, as journalists who might have confronted him on the issue had by then left the venue.  

BJP asserts

Led by local MLA Dileep Ray, the BJP unit in Rourkela is beginning to assert itself. 

Party activists confronted government officials in the steel city earlier this week when Ray was not invited to a programme for the distribution of money under the Madhu Babu Pension Yojana. Things might have taken an ugly turn had the organisers not been forced to postpone the programme where textile, handloom and handicrafts minister Snehangini Chhuria was supposed to do the honours. 

Sources said that taken aback by the aggression of the BJP workers, officials in the steel city have decided to be extra careful while organising such programmes in the future, as they cannot afford to risk a confrontation between the BJP and the ruling BJD.

Congress unity

Locked in a row with former Kalahandi MP Bhakta Charan Das, Pradesh Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan, who had begun his innings with the slogan of unity a year ago, recently admitted to differences within the party. 

However, Prasad sought to give the issue his own spin saying that divergence of viewpoints in the Congress, instead of being the sign of any malaise, was a healthy trend as it reflected intra-party democracy. “This is not a party run by dictators. We have a healthy internal democracy,” he said, but refused to comment on what would be the final outcome of his increasingly acrimonious war of words with Das.

Damage control

Rural development minister Badri Narayan Patra, who happens to be chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s pointsman in Keonjhar district, found himself in serious trouble when nine BJD councillors defied the party’s whip and voted against the local municipality chairperson, throwing her out of power. The embarrassment for the party was so acute that Patra was not only asked to ensure that legal steps were initiated against the rebels under the anti-defection law, but also to take other damage control measures to salvage the BJD’s image. The minister rose to the occasion and impressed the chief minister by engineering the defection of former Congress MP Madhab Sardar who joined the BJD amid great fanfare at Naveen Nivas in Bhubaneswar. This saved the BJD’s blushes and Patra his job.

Fall from grace

If sources in the ruling BJD are to be believed, Cuttack’s disgraced former mayor Anita Behera, who had to quit in the wake of the ration card scandal, was keen to retain her post as a councillor even after stepping down as the head of the corporation. Even her patrons within the BJD, including Cuttack MLA Debashish Samantray, had initially managed to convince her that there would be no need for her to give up her post as a councillor. However, as the controversy over the appearance of her name in the list of ration card beneficiaries snowballed, chief minister Naveen Patnaik sent instructions to his party leaders in Cuttack, asking them to ensure that she resigned from both her posts. Behera fell in line immediately. 

Footnote

No takers for job fair 

Heckling of Biju Patnaik University of Technology vice-chancellor Shyam Sunder Pattnaik at the university’s first-ever alumni meet here last week has brought the issue of state government’s proposed but much-delayed job mela for engineering students back into focus. 

The promise that was made over a year ago is yet take a concrete shape with the government coming up with one excuse or another. 

Knowledgeable sources, however, said that the job fair had remained a non-starter because of lack of interest on the part of companies that were supposed to take part. “Such developments have, however, raised the frustration level of students who finally took it out on the vice-chancellor. The government should stop making promises it cannot keep,” said a source.