Taking credit

An interesting bit of news about folk poet, Haldhar Nag, has been doing the rounds. Nag, who was recently decorated with Padma Shri, is said to have bagged the honour not on state government’s recommendation, but because some highly placed Odia in Delhi pushed his case. The buzz is that even though Nag, who is quite a name in west Odisha, deserved the award, the state government’s expert panel did not consider him worth it. However, now that he has got it and is being felicitated by different organisations and interviewed by newspapers and television channels, the state government seems to be basking in reflected glory.  

Opinionated 

Suspended BJP leader Ashok Sahu seems to be thriving on social media. Unfazed by the fact that his rivals in the state party continue to play tricks with him, the former IPS officer —who believes in calling a spade a spade — has been using his Facebook account to express his opinion. His constant presence on the social media reminds his rivals that he may be down but he is not out. One of his latest posts was about the Naveen Patnaik government’s Posco and Vedanta fiasco. He said while these companies gained by augmenting their share prices in their respective stock exchanges after signing MoUs with the state government, poor people had to pay the price, with some falling to police bullets and others losing their precious land. 

Gaining ground

Former Bhubaneswar mayor Mihir Mohanty, who had been relegated into virtual political anonymity after he quit the BJD along with his mentor and Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM) leader Pyari Mohan Mohapatra, is back in focus. Recently, he was seen on all the local news channels when he led a delegation of lawyers to the CBI office in Bhubaneswar to submit documents sought by the agency in the Pajero case, which involved food supplies and consumer welfare minister, Sanjay Das Burma. There is a buzz that the former mayor, who switched loyalties soon after joining OJM and eventually returned back to BJD, is slowly but surely getting closer to the people who matter in the ruling party.  

PR guru 

Trust former state Congress president  Niranjan Patnaik, to offer his opinion on anything with the faintest Odia connection. The leader, whose PR skills invariably keep him in the news, seems to be getting more newspaper space than the present Congress chief, Prasad Harichandan, who is far more docile and restrained in his reactions.  Patnaik’s recent statements expectedly have been on about the current political storm over food supplies minister, Sanjay Das Burma’s Pajero case and the new Aahar outlets opened by the state government. Unlike Harichandan, who rarely goes ballistic, Patnaik has come out on these issues all guns blazing. And he cares two hoots about what his party leaders make of his strong opinions. 

Water worries

Housing and urban development minister Pushpendra Singh Deo may be taking credit for having improved piped water supply through the public health engineering organisation in several cities and towns of the state but  criticism against him is mounting in his home district of Kalahandi, where most of the areas continue to reel from an acute drinking water crisis. While rural areas are worse off with rivers and wells drying up, things are bad even in towns such as Bhawanipatna and Dharamgarh. The opposition Congress and BJP have latched onto the opportunity with protests being organised across the district. The situation, said a source, has left the minister worried though he continues to maintain a brave face in public.  

FOOTNOTE

Aggression pays

State BJP leader Samir Mohanty seems to be in an aggressive mood and has effectively overshadowed party spokesperson Sajjan Sharma. Sharma used to be the most visible face of the BJP on local television channels but Mohanty has taken the centre stage with his no holds barred attack on food supplies minister Sanjay Das Burma who recently received a notice from the CBI. Mohanty has come out with some interesting facets in the Das Burma case, thus providing ammunition not only to his party but also the Congress. He has been unrelenting in his criticism of the minister. In the process, he once again has established himself as one of the front ranking young generation BJP leader in the state.