Jena under pressure

The alleged leakage of matriculation results has brought school and mass education minister Pratap Jena under a cloud. Even though he wasted no time in ordering an inquiry into the incident, the chief minister is said to be far from happy with the functioning of the departments that keep making blunders every now and then. It is being pointed out that the matriculation exams had to be postponed after a set of question papers were found missing from a particular centre, an inexcusable gaffe. The leakage of results, which is being blamed on the agencies entrusted with the job of uploading the data on the Board of Secondary Education's website, has further complicated the situation for the department and the minister cannot escape his responsibility.

Set to fly

Rourkela MLA and former minister Sarada Prasad Nayak has fallen from grace in the wake of the failed attempted coup against chief minister Naveen Patnaik. But now the star of his one-time protégé and Raghunathpalli legislator Subrat Tarai seems set to rise. BJD insiders anticipate a major shake-up in the party organisation in Rourkela with Tarai certain to be given important responsibilities. The young MLA is also being tipped for a ministerial berth when the chief minister decides to expand his ministry. Since Nayak is out and the chief minister would not like to let the region go unrepresented, the chances of Tarai’s induction remain high, said a source.

Rout update

Senior BJD leader Damodar Rout may be eager to make a comeback into the Naveen Patnaik ministry but he has taken care not to make his intentions too obvious. In fact, sources close to him say that the veteran, who was dropped as agriculture minister last year under controversial circumstances, is being stoic about his chances now that an expansion seems to be in the offing. “He may feel disappointed but the world will not end for him if he is not made a minister. The bigger satisfaction for him is that his bete noire and Jagatsinghpur MLA Bishnu Das seems to have lost favour with the chief minister as he continues to be seen as a Pyari Mohapatra acolyte,” said a Rout follower.

Bureaucracy blues

Kalahandi MP Bhakta Charan Das got a taste of the bureaucracy’s obstinacy when earlier this month, he was not allowed to take away a few bamboo pieces he had bought from Jamguda village in his constituency. The village, which is part of his constituency, is the first in the state to have been given community rights over local forest under the Forest Rights Act, which defines bamboo as a minor forest produce. Das was the first buyer of bamboo from the Jamguda village council but was reportedly prevented by local forest officials from taking it with him. They put their foot down saying they had no instructions on the sale of bamboo extracted from community forests to outsiders. One does not know what happened later but at least on that day, the MP could do little except cursing the insensitivity of the state forest officials to a law enacted by the Parliament.

BJD infighting

The controversy surrounding the recent attack on Rabi Hussain Gandhi has brought the infighting in the Jajpur district BJD unit into sharp focus with fingers being pointed at Korei MLA Pritiranjan Ghadei, the son of finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei. Party insiders say that relations between Pritiranjan and Gandhi soured on the eve of 2009 Assembly elections when the party ticket for Korei went to the former mainly because of his father’s political clout. Gandhi, who also keen on contesting from the seat, had to pocket his ambitions but the seeds of a bitter rivalry between him and Pritiranjan had been sown. Now that things have gone too far, the BJD leadership has to think of ways to rein in the two leaders.

Footnote

Perfect host

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik played the perfect host to Conrad K. Sangma, son of presidential aspirant P.A. Sangma, when he came calling at Naveen Nivas last week. Sangma junior was offered fresh green coconuts from the chief minister’s garden as welcome drink and then treated to a lavish buffet including vegetable biryani and typical Odia sweet dishes. An overwhelmed Conrad was personally introduced by Naveen to his party leaders, who then attested their signatures to the nomination papers of his father. The young leader from Meghalaya, who is one of the top leaders of NCP in the northeastern state, is still singing praises of the Odisha chief minister, who seems to have made very good friend.