Tusharkanta’s lightly sent letter puts political parties in flutter

Bhubaneswar Bureau
Come July, Orissa shall send three members to the upper house of the Parliament against vacancies created by its retiring representatives.

The political animals have already started wagging their tails to please their masters on whose mercy their candidature would depend. It was disgusting to many when BJD MP Baishnab Ch. Parida met the CM’s private Secretary, an IAS officer, Sri V.K.Pandian and sought his blessings for a second term nomination. If Pandian is pleased, the “supremo” of BJD would find it difficult to say him ‘No’, he believes.

Orissa has many such fellows in Rajya Sabha whose performances are so very poor that, had they not been in the upper house, the State could have escaped the ignominy of being represented through carpet-baggers.

A tireless conscience keeper of the State, former Banker Tusarkanta Satpathy has issued a letter to the ruling party and two other major parties to nominate him, if at all they are going to nominate befitting persons for the three Rajya Sabha seats. Instead of choosing political sophomores and sycophants, the candidates for the Rajya Sabha should be selected for nomination thorough proper screening of their education and orientation by an expert committee comprising wise persons, he has said.

“If I am nominated and sent to Rajya Sabha, I will not indulge in property accumulation; will sit in fast even on to death to bring in Special Status for the State; will donate all my salaries and allowances to CM;s Relief Fund; and will not allow a single pie of MPLAD fund spent beyond the purpose of the Fund”, he has informed.

People know that Tusarkanta Satpathy stands for honesty, integrity and probity. He possesses a brilliant mind as his write-ups are regularly coming out in almost all the newspapers of the State dealing with intricate and urgent public issues, precisely and yet in utmost speaking manner.

His letter, though apparently lightly sent, has put the political parties in flutter, as now they are to say why somebody else, if they nominate anybody else, was preferred to Tusarkanta.

ORISSA MATTERS fully supports his suggestion that, selection to the House of the States (Rajya Sabha) should never be from the political sophomores and sycophants, but from the most deserving persons of the State through proper screening by a committee of experts drawn from people-related areas.