Rakhi tactic

Mahanadi Bachao Abhiyan, the sub-committee formed by the all-party panel on the issue, chose Raksha Bandhan to organise its first news meet where its members came up with the idea to enlist the support of the local media fraternity. On behalf of the Abhiyan, a campaign against the Chhattisgarh government’s unilateral constructions on the river that threatened its flow, one of its members tied rakhis to the assembled newspersons and sought their support for the state’s cause. Some newspersons found this funny though no one protested. One of them, though, was heard saying that this was an attempt to make the media biased.  

PR exercise 

Self-publicity is an art Bhubaneswar mayor Ananta Narayan Jena seems to have mastered. He recently posted pictures of himself and other civic officials supervising the drive to pump out water at Garage Chhak, which was flooded following a breach in the nearby canal, on Facebook. The mayor claimed that he rushed to the area upon hearing the news and ensured that the situation was brought back to normal with pumps and excavator machines being pushed into service. Others, though, were not convinced. His Facebook post drew varied reactions with one follower calling him omnipresent, while another took a dig at him and mocked his claims about turning Bhubaneswar into a smart city. “Ei aama smart city (This is our smart city),” the person posted with sarcasm. 

Balancing act

Former minister Niranjan Patnaik knows the Congress culture inside out. He performed a nice balancing act during the state-wide strike the party organised on the Mahanadi water sharing issue on August 16. While Pradesh Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan and Opposition leader Narasingha Mishra, who do not see eye to eye with each other, courted arrest during the shutdown, Patnaik ensured that he kept both camps happy. He first went to Congress Bhavan, the party headquarters in Bhubaneswar, from where Harichandan led his supporters, and then joined Mishra and his group in courting arrest. Thus, he kept both camps in good humour. 

Sharp shooter

BJD’s Dhenkanal MP Tathagata Satpathy keeps sniping at Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan off and on. Tathagata, son of former chief minister Nandini Satpathy, recently took a swipe at Pradhan on the Mahanadi water sharing issue saying that the minister’s stand showed that he was not keen on protecting Odisha’s interest. Aware that Pradhan had also faced criticism over the issue from some of his own party (BJP) leaders, Tathagata sought to rub it in. This, incidentally, was not the first time that the Dhenkanal MP targeted the Union minister, who hails from neighbouring Angul district but, has been elected to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar. Earlier, too, Tathagata had made comments that appeared to question Pradhan’s loyalty to his home state.

FOOTNOTE

Opening fire

Union minister for tribal affairs Jual Oram, who had, so far refrained from commenting on the Mahanadi water sharing dispute, has waded into the controversy and accused the BJD of unnecessarily playing up the issue since its own MPs had at one point sought diversion of the river’s surplus water into the Rushikulya basin. The aggression of Oram, who alleged that the ruling party was divided over the Mahanadi and was making a song and dance about it only to divert people’s attention from crucial issues such as deaths owing to malnutrition in Nagada and the Kandhamal firing, has taken some of his own party colleagues by surprise. 

“Wonder why he had to comment on the controversy at all. Is it because he does not want his ministerial colleague, Dharmendra Pradhan, who also hails from Odisha, to run away with all the credit?” asked a BJP leader.