Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) was created to save human lives from urban hazards in Bhubaneswar. But it has emerged as the worst enemy of human lives in the city. It tortures Bhubaneswar. The Law that created it is raped. A lady IAS officer, Ms. Aparajita Sarangi acts as its Commissioner and plays havoc with urban life under the wraps of deception.

A few days ago, there was an e-mail campaign amongst different e-groups of Oriya origin to project Ms. Sarangi as the most efficient urban administrator, on misconceived claims that she has transformed the city into a beautiful place to live in.

A Non-Resident Oriya, who works in USA as a Professor and doesn’t know how obnoxious is the city in reality, had initiated the campaign. Inspired as he was by the roadside paintings and sculptures that the BMC has spangled the zone spanning from the Airport to IT and Hotels hub Chandrasekharpur with, he had posted the first e-mail in this regard, he confessed. Anybody, who doesn’t regularly reside in Bhubaneswar and pays only an occasional visit to the city but does not enter into the interior, can easily be deceived by the decorations in display. All the fellows who followed suit the Professor in singing glory to Sarangi belonged to this category.

But in reality, BMC has no concern for the citizens of the city and it epitomizes the hypocrisy that Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has so far practiced to hoodwink the peoples.

Under the gloss of development it has helped contractors milk the urban funds; but healthcare, which constitute the core of its responsibilities, is blatantly pretermitted.

The entire interior of the City is full of solid wastes including hazardous medical wastes, filthy cowsheds, stinking excrement of cows, buffalos, dogs and other animals. Severe lack of bare amenities in the slums is forcing the disadvantaged peoples use the roadsides for easing of their bowels. Cameras may capture how nasty is its living environment; but no camera can capture the stench that the BMC is compelling the citizens to live with.

It has been attributing its failure to dispose off solid wastes to peoples’ resentment to selection of sites for the purpose. The issue being under dispute before the High Court of Orissa, we may wait to focus on where the matter really stands. But what has happened to the only Hospital that the BMC owns and operates?

The Hospital in disarray

The BMC Hospital is in blatant disarray. Government in the Urban Development Department brings Government Doctors on deputation from the Health and Family Welfare department and posts them to this Hospital. The UD department makes the requisition for Doctors in various disciplines on the basis of the BMC’s need. The Hospital is terribly handicapped by shortage of Doctors. But the BMC is never active in pressing for filling up of the vacancies. Operation theaters are devoid of minimum amenities; indoor patients of standard food and medicines. Rooms are dirty and beds are broken. The environment is so perilous that when asked as to how he feels, a patient answered that had he ever visited hell, he should have a stock of words to express his impression! Not only it ignores the basic needs of patients, it tortures the nursing sisters who do their best to save human lives. The nurses are appointed by the BMC. They are highly skilled health workers. But the BNC has kept them devoid of regular salary and despite putting up decades long services, they are forced to perish with a paltry remuneration of around rupees fifteen hundred a month, which is much less than the minimum wages fixed under the Minimum Wages Act for unskilled workers. The Hospital is a mere sample of apathy that the BMC, busy in serving avaricious contractors, is capable of showing to healthcare.

The sole purpose of posting an IAS officer as Commissioner of BMC was defined by the necessity of efficient coordination amongst various departments of Orissa administration to facilitate smooth and expeditious execution of its programs and projects. The scenarios supra strongly suggest that the purpose is lost. If grace is granted on the assumption that recalcitrant attitude prevalent in different administrative departments might have contributed to such corrosion, who but Ms. Sarangi is responsible for the open rape of the BMC Act?

Open rape of BMC Act 2003

Ms. Sarangi has exhibited aggressive zeal in demolition of temporary kiosks run by marginal traders and even tiny temples built up by local peoples as community centers of worship and cultural get-togethers. But she has never touched the cowsheds that are run on large encroached plots by milkmen in the most lucrative locations in the capital city even though those are the principal source of unbearable unhygienic condition that the city is subjected to.

To save the city’s inhabitants and visitors from mosquito menace and from pernicious pollution, Orissa Legislature had made provisions in the Orissa Municipal Corporation Act, 2003 that had stipulated that cowsheds must stand obliterated within the limits of BMC with immediate effect. Orissa Milk Producers Association had moved the Orissa High Court against this new Law to evict milkmen from their encroached plots praying simultaneously that the Government be asked to rehabilitate them in suitable places in the city before eviction and not to impose prohibition on running of cowsheds. Orissa High Court rejected their plea. They went to the Supreme Court of India against the order of the High Court. There they also failed. The Supreme Court, in deciding Civil Appeal No.940 of 2006 arising out of SLP (C) Nos. 16362-16363 of 2004, made it absolutely clear that the milkmen must be evicted from the limits of BMC and must not be rehabilitated anywhere in the City and its periphery as “Right to environment being a fundamental right it is the duty of the State to make it sure that people get a pollution free surrounding”. The milkmen had pleaded that a former Chief Minister had assured them with rehabilitation and hence they should be given plots in substitute to run their business. Rejecting this plea, the Supreme Court had declared, “In view of the 2003 Act, even the doctrine of Promissory Estoppels will have no application”. It had further ordered that the milkmen cannot even be allowed to put up cowsheds in villages bordering Bhubaneswar. “As by reason of the Orissa Municipal Corporation Act, within the periphery of the town, dairies or cowsheds cannot be maintained, the State cannot be entitled to adhere to its earlier plan of rehabilitating them in villages mentioned therein”, it had said while observing, “Not only filth, stench and unhealthy places have to be eliminated, but the (town planning) would be such that it helps in achieving family values, youth values, seclusion and clean air to make the locality a better place to live”

Thus the Supreme Court has not only rejected the plea of milkmen to have cow-buffalo-swine-sheds in Bhubaneswar, but also has approved the provisions laid down under Sections 409, 543 and 548 of The Orissa Municipal Corporation Act, 2003, which prohibit keeping animals of cow category anywhere within and around the city limits. The judgment delivered on 2 February 2006 is published in (2006) 3 Supreme Court Cases 229. So, there was no legal problem at all on demolition of cowsheds and eviction of milkmen with their herds of animals to free the city from stench and flies and mosquitoes and malaria and filariasis and threats of cancer and tuberculosis. But Ms. Sarangi, who has earned the epithet of demolition lady, has never touched the cowsheds.

There are above 4000 illegal cowsheds in the city according to a source that confides, every cowshed operator pays bribe to the tune of Rs.2000 per month to keep the 2003 Act inoperative. If it is true, at least Rs.80 lakhs is collected as bribe from the milkmen every month to protect them from eviction.

The Law is openly raped. If bribe is not the stimulant, the BMC Commissioner as well as the State Chief Secretary should state as to why the 2003 Act, which has prohibited running of cowsheds in Bhubaneswar and in total approval of which the Supreme Court of India has passed a very welfare order for eviction of milkmen without any delay sans any rehabilitation package from the area of BMC, has not been implemented so far.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

After Ms. Pramila Mallik, Minister for Women and Child Development was dragged into debate over allegation that she had demanded and received bribe in advance for putting the employees of the office of State Women Commission (SWC) in regular scale of salary and after the Speaker directed the Minister to place her version in the House the next day and the government to find out and report if the allegation was true, the Government has all on a sudden used its advantage of majority in the House to end the session of Orissa Legislative Assembly eight days ahead of its schedule. The session was scheduled to continue till 31st December. And the House was to transact so much business that important Bills had been adopted through guillotine to avoid possible paucity of time. Hence, the government stand to abruptly terminate the session for want of business looks flimsy.

The SWC employees, comprising 36 persons in all categories, are not getting their salaries in regular rates for which they have been making their representations for years. Ms. Mallik being their Minister had allegedly demanded a bribe worth Rs.5 lakhs to allow regular pay scales to them. The poor employees were even made to cough up Rs. 50,000/- in advance. This is how a section of the media has carried the version of the concerned employees.

On 19th December, Congress member Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra had made a special mention of this exposure during the zero hour driving the House into frenzy.

As the Opposition insisted that the Chief Minister be made to make a statement, the Speaker had observed that as Rules permit the Government 48 hours to respond to the issue raised through special mentions, they should wait till then.

Dwelling on the subject through a point of order Opposition Chief Whip Satyabhusan Sahoo wanted to know from the CM as to what steps he has taken after his cabinet colleague was exposed in mainstream media over such unprecedented ugly instance of seeking and taking bribe from a segment of government employees to fit them into regular scale of pay.

As the CM did not come forward with any answer, gnawing pandemonium hurled down adjournment after adjournments till the Speaker, accepting Opposition views that the matter was too serious to be ignored, issued directions to the Government in the afternoon to enquire into the matter immediately.

Ms. Mallik in a statement told the House on 20th December that the allegation raised against her was blatantly baseless. She has neither demanded any bribe nor has ever taken a part thereof in advance to allow fitment of the SWC employees into regular scale of pay she maintained.

Before her statement was perused, the Vedanta University Bill was taken up. Deputy Leader of Opposition attacked it as a controversial Bill spangled entirely with defects deliberately sculptured on its body to defeat State interest and coined voluminously in order to dissuade proper application of probing mind on its mischiefs within a short time and demanded that consideration on the Bill be deferred to allow Lawmakers enough time to study it in-depth before proceeding with the business it warrants. Lawmakers across party lines were almost of the same opinion that remained unchanged even in respect to the other Bill coined on Sri University. Sensing the attitude of the House, both the Bills were deferred. But before the House was on its normal track, a treasury bench member Arun Sahu, known as a member of CM’s inner circle, suggested that the two Bills being deferred, the House should end the session, as there was no business left. Congress heavyweight Nalini Mohanty read in it a conspiracy to stop Opposition induced resolutions and other legitimate businesses. But a motion by the Government Chief Whip to end the session was adopted by voice vote and the Speaker went ahead to close the session.

It may be that the present Assembly will have no new session. Its normal life is at the fag ends. So the House will have no opportunity to appropriately finish the issues it had brought into Assembly records including the bribe issue and breach of privilege allegations against the CM, Navin Patnaik and Cooperation Minister Ms. Surama Padhi.

Deputy Leader of Opposition Mr. Narasingha Mishra had based his privilege notice against Mr. Patnaik on the latter’s willful sleeping over the Commission of Inquiry Report on Ganjam hooch tragedy when the privilege notice served by Shambhu Nayak and Padmalochan Panda against Ms. Padhi was based on her discernible attempt to mislead the House in the massive scam spotted in Bhubaneswar Urban House Building Cooperative Society. The Speaker had assured to do the needful after examination of the notices at his end. But now, with the abrupt termination of the session, most probably that would not happen and the Members will not be able to take stock of the breach of privilege in both these cases.

On the other hand, the ugly offence Ms. Mallik has allegedly committed could not be taken stock of as appropriately as it should have been had the House not ended its session so suddenly. She, in her statement, has given such information that gives glimpses of environment congenial to corruption that exists in the office of the Minister.

The day the matter was raised in the House, she had told the media that she has instructed the Department to find out if anybody has used her name in collection of bribe. This means, she does not entirely rule out the possibility of bribe money collection from the concerned employees.

On the other hand, member Damodar Raut of Basanti Bara fame, who is also the Secretary General of BJD, in expressing solidarity with Ms. Mallik had immediately tried to intimidate the affected employees apparently in a bid to drag them into silence over the bribe allegation. He had used the Etv channel to transmit the alarming message to them that if they confirm to have given bribe worth Rs. 50,000/- to Ms. Mallik in advance against her demand for Rs.5 lakhs, they must first be booked for giving bribe.

Modus operandi of Mr. Raut in trying to intimidate the employees into silence, if designed to protect Ms. Mallik, was perhaps present in a different form in crafting abrupt closure of the session after she presented her statement in the House.

Ms. Mallik’s statement was full of so many gaps that through them anybody can find how delay was deliberate in processing the proposal for fitment of the employees into regular scale of pay.

As for example, she has said that the proposal to put 33 employees of SWC in regular scale of pay was received from the SWC by her department on 08 November 2006. No action was taken on that. The SWC repeated the proposal after more than seven months adding three more names to the previous list of 33 employees and her office received the same on 17 May 2007. She has told that now orders are issued for their fitment in regular scales of pay. She has not told the date of the issued order.

The House in order to monitor the matter arising out of bribe charge leveled by the employees of SWC against the Minister could have tried to know the real reason of such inordinate delay in disposal of the concerned file had the Assembly session not abruptly died

How else than designed the phenomenon could be apprehended?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Sudarsan Pattanayak needs no introduction. He is known all over the world for his unique and excellent sand art. And, Orissa is very rightly proud of him.

He is sad. Sad because the government of his home state Orissa has been sleeping over his application for a small plot of land on the sea shore where he could have established a school to impart training in sand art.

Chief Minister Navin Patnaik is running a government that puts top priority on allocation of 10 thousand Acres of land to non-Oriya Anil Agrawal on the Puri seashore to help him
Establish his private commercial hub under cover of an university by the name of Vedant.. He has exceeded all the limits of administrative zeal in helping Korean firm POSCO grab Orissa soil.

Sudarsan Pattanayak is a self-made artist who has a limitless store of good wishes for the entire world, but has no wherewithal for cultivating administration in favor of his proposed school.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

If the Ministry is answerable to the Assembly, Orissa Assembly has miserably failed to monitor the Ministers.

It is the Speaker who has on many occasions expressed dismay over failure of Ministers in giving acceptable answers to queries from the Members. He has gone up to instructing Ministers to come with the proper reply within a time stipulated by him. This speaks volume of how the Ministers have tried to evade time and again.

It is not that this odd has crippled the Assembly entirely. Some of the astute Members have sometimes succeeded in making Ministers vomit how administration has failed in their respective departments. But it is marked, whenever this happens, the Ministers usually shift the responsibility for the admitted failures to the bureaucracy that according to them is too recalcitrant to execute programs properly. As for example after stark failure in using the available funds earmarked for welfare of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes was established by facts and figures in course of an adjournment motion on 18th December, Welfare Minister Chaitanya Prasad Majhi has attributed this failure to the bureaucracy.

But what the Ministers themselves are doing?

Almost all the Secretaries are disgusted that Ministers are making inordinate delays in disposing of files at their level irrespective of how urgent they are. In most cases, delay is deliberate and extraneous consideration is the suspected cause.

Extra Official Elements (EOE) in fact control the offices of several Ministers.

Under the Rules of Business, a Private Secretary (PS) is the officer, who peruses the files endorsed to a Minister and briefs him in order to help speedy disposal thereof. Therefore responsible high-grade officers are posted as PS to Ministers. But most of the Ministers allow themselves to be guided by EOEs in disposing off files. No file moves in a Minister’s chamber till the EOE wants it move. The bond between the Minister and EOE is secret. But it is the EOE that really matters. As for example, no file gets disposed off unless Mishra asks Health Minister Sanatan Bishi to clear it. No file moves in the chamber of the Labor Minister Pradipta Kumar Nayak unless Mangaraj wants it to be disposed off. Mishra and Mangaraj are samples of how certain individuals, not officially engaged to do what they are doing, are controlling the officials of Ministers’ offices

A disgusted PS may be available to you on query about a file to say that he cannot place the file before the Minister unless the Minister calls for that. When Damodar Raut was Minister of Information and Public Relations, this was the reply I had got from his PS on query on an accreditation file. Unless you put up the file how should the Minister know of it and how come he will call for the file unless he is informed of the file having come to him from the Department? I had queried. From the reply of the PS, I got it that the EOE on whom the Minister was relying upon to dispose off files specifically coming from the I&PR department was a journalist who obviously was acting Mishra / Mangaraj to Dama Raut at that time. And the syndrome continues.

Watch the office of any Minister and mark how many days are delayed in disposal of files, you get the picture of how EOEs have taken over administration. Lobbies galore. Normal rule derailed.

The Assembly should have asked Chaitanya Prasad Majhi as to how speedily he has been disposing off files coming to him from the department and should have taken a stock of which sort of files have taken how many days in his office for disposal.

But, why he alone? The same question should have been asked to every Minister. If any Minister says that he / she is not guided by an EOE, the details of time he / she has taken to dispose off files vis-à-vis the nature of files read with the period of pending should be reviewed by the Assembly.

Orissa needs to be saved from the grip of lobbyists and commission agents. Therefore there should be a social audit on file disposal in the offices of Ministers with emphasis on locating and weeding out EOEs who thrive on corruption and sans greasing whose palms files seldom move. But this cannot happen unless there is a law enacted specifically for this purpose.

Can the Assembly play any role in it? Before naturally the present Assembly breathes its last, can it at least coin a resolution in this regard?

How long should we watch Ministers escaping unpunished for non-functioning / malfunctioning of their respective departments even as EOEs continue to control their offices?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has risen to the occasion and shunted assertive IAS officer Hrushikesh Panda out of Orissa Milk-producers Federation (OMFED). He is placed under General Administration Department as an officer without specific duty.

This administrative action was necessitated after Panda’s audacity was discussed in these pages on December 13, 2008.

He had, in the matter of fixation of retail rate of milk, pooh-poohed the authority of the Chief Minister and his further continuance as Chief of OMFED would have put the government at a level to be laughed at.

But transfer of Panda is not enough. The government should institute an enquiry to determine as to what extent corruption has crippled the monopoly cooperative merchant of milk in the State.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Chairman of the Life Insurance Corporation of India, Mr. T.S.Vijayan was served with an ultimatum on 24 November 2008 seeking action against Mr. Nihar Ranjan Tripathy, ADM of the Corporation’s P&GS Unit at Bhubaneswar, who is accused of sexual harassment perpetrated on a lady employee in the premises of the branch office on 16 October 2008. But surprisingly he is silent and the lady employee continues to endure the insult.

Nobody knows since when the LIC of India has developed such culture of recalcitrance in dealing with crimes of passion. But, the way the accused officer is protected till date speaks volumes of how now it sloughs over its legally required duty to protect dignity of its lady employees.

The East Central Zone Insurance Employees’ Association, in its Working Committee meeting held at Patna, Bihar, in a resolution on 28 November 2008, has “unequivocally condemned the uncivilized behavior, use of highly objectionable words, display of body language aimed at outraging the modesty of the lady employee” by Mr. Tripathy.

The resolution goes on to note, “ This meeting notes with serious concern that even though such an ugly and unbecoming incident occurred on 16th October 2008 inside the office premises and that too during the office hours and even though the victim lady …………..Assistant, P&GS Unit, Bhubaneswar has immediately lodged a written complaint with the SDM, LIC if India, Bhubaneswar Division with a prayer to give her due justice, the Bhubaneswar Divisional management has not taken any worth mentioning steps on such a serious matter and has tried to wash off its hands by referring the complaint to a hurriedly constituted Divisional cell. Even after lapse of over one month, the Divisional cell has not started its enquiry let alone investigating the matter. Even the victimized lady’s request to transfer the accused officer from that office so that the enquiry process is not vitiated is not acceded to, which is nothing but blatant violation of the LIC’s CO circular and the verdict of the Supreme Court. Rather, direct and indirect threats are hurled at the concerned lady employee pressurizing her to withdraw her complant. Even the management was made aware of all these by our organization, no step has been taken till date purportedly to shield the erring officer”.

The Employees Association, “while condemning such uncivilized action of the erring officer and the inaction of the management” has demanded that urgent steps be taken to “punish the guilty and give justice to the victim and till then, to transfer the concerned officer from his present place of posting in interest of justice and fairplay”.

The LIC Chairman has been asked to “take note that any delay in taking action against Mr. Tripathy is the same as abating in continuous humiliation and harassment” of the insulted lady. He is surprisingly silent.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Chief Minister Navin Patnaik, whom non-Oriya, even foreign industrialists use as an instrument to grab Orissa’s natural resources and corrupt ministers as well as bureaucrats use as a shield, is perhaps too weak to handle IAS officer Hrushikesh Panda.

Panda, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of public sector cooperative business joint of milk producers (OMFED) has shown his guts in ignoring instruction of Navin Patnaik in the matter of hiking retail price of OMFED milk as he has revived the rate struck down by the CM on October 31, 2008.

To total disadvantage of consumers he had arbitrarily hiked the retail rate of milk from Rs.20 per liter to Rs.24 with immediate effect on 16 October 2008 without even any prior announcement. Investigative journalists had shown how the hike was vitiated with impropriety and how OMFED had become an Augean stable. Sharp protests from consumers rocked the corridors of power. The Chief Minister was warned by every one of his cabinet whenever whosoever of them met him. It took fifteen days for the CM to rise to the occasion and to impose a reversal of the price to earlier rate. Simultaneously, he constituted a high-power committee for finding out if price hike of OMFED milk was necessary and if so, what should be the fair price. The committee is working on that and its report is yet to be finalized.

This was not to be digested by Panda.

He is a man who does not like to be subdued. Even his career as an IAS officer has occasions to attract scathing criticism from members of Orissa Legislative Assembly leading to unanimous decisions for stringent actions against him including suspension.

There are occasions when administrative authorities have seen in him streaks of insubordination and there are occasions when the judiciary has intervened in disciplinary actions against him.

Affected OMFED consumers are inclined to suspect that Chief Minister Navin Patnaik’s order for keeping the milk rate stymied at the previous level till the high-level committee determines a just rate and the Government approves the same is struck by the same streak.

If OMFED’s decision to increase the rate is not forthwith nullified by the Government and Panda is not tamed to honor Government orders, it will be clear that Navin Patnaik is too weak to handle Hrushikesh Panda.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

When misrule gives birth to anarchy, what should artists, authors and journalists do? You can have a glimpse of that by watching what Nishan Editor Lenin Kumar and his colleagues, Dhananjaya Lenka and Rabi Jena have done.

When a State falls in the hands of oppressors that torture progressive writers as they have done to Lenin and his team, what should the men of letters, journalists and authors, the conscience-keepers of the society do without disturbing whatever little tranquility is left?

You can find that out in visiting the unique event Bhubaneswar witnessed in front of the official residence of the Governor of Orissa on December 11, 2008.

Mark the picture and you get it.

The cream of Orissa’s intelligentsia demonstrated its wrath over oppressive police actions against the progressive trio by the participants gagging their own mouths with black cloths before the Raj Bhawan, from where a delegation of them also went to the Governor and apprised him of the official mischief while urging upon him to intervene in order to protect freedom of expression.

We, in these pages, have discussed the matter in-depth on December 10, 2008.

Surprisingly, in session, the rampart of democracy and the guardian of peoples’ right in the State, the Orissa legislative Assembly, has failed to pay due attention to take stock of this sordid assault on the scribes’ fundamental rights.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa Legislative Assembly has ousted Congress member Tarakant Bahinipati for seven days as on adoption of a treasury bench motion to suspend him the Speaker decided to enforce it on 11th December.

Bahinipati attracted the harsh decision by venturing to hit the Speaker with an earphone though that had missed the target. It was an affront to dignity of the House, members felt. Bahinipati also felt the same way; but explained his action as a reaction to anti-democratic conduct of the treasury side.

After successfully stonewalling the House the preceding day on the ground of absence of a white paper in respect to the official notice calling attention on killing of Laxmananand and consequent communal violence in Kandhamal that turned into exposing the government’s reluctance to provide the same for use as the base of debate, the Opposition on 11th December allowed the House to proceed so that its own version as well as the government’s could be kept on records and the reality could be known.

And, thus the House started to proceed on Kandhamal issue.

And, thus the House came to hear what the Deputy Leader of Opposition, Narasingha Mishra, known for clear comprehension and in-depth analysis of any issue in hand, was to say on Kandhamal.

Mishra began his speech by razing down the “rosy picture” painted by the initiator of the debate, government chief whip, B.K.Arukh on the present situation in Kandhamal. This district, he reminded the government, is one of the most backward districts of India, where Schedule Tribes constitute 52 per cent and Schedule Castes 17 per cent of its total population. But 90 per cent of its population perish Below-the-Poverty-Line (BPL) with an average per capita income of Rs.4, 743/- as against Rs.5,264/- in other districts of Orissa in the same segment, he showed from statistical reports. And roared, is it the evidence of development that the government boasts of? And then, as he proceeded, he cited certain documents on records in print media to show the darker side of the communal flare up at Kandhamal, the core issue of the particular debate.

Giving vent to his suspicion that Laxmananand’s murder might have been the BJP’s handiwork in executing its stratagem to cultivate communal support in approaching elections, he went ahead to support his apprehensions with circumstantial evidences, to the utmost discomfort of the BJP members of the treasury benches.

He cited newspaper reports to show how contemptuously Togadia of saffron combine had alleged that it was Chief Minister Navin Patnaik’s chilling nonchalance that had facilitated the murder of Laxmananand.

And, as bruised BJP members were at a loss to understand how to stop Mishra’s trigger, he went on to show how Laxmananand was a destroyer of societal solidarity in the affected district in the name of religion and how he was the arch villain behind the 1994 caste conflicts that in acrimony had surpassed every conceivable violence in that district.

Even as no action was taken against perpetrators of that crime against the community, it is the BJP’s alliance government that surreptitiously withdrew the security cover from Laxmananand before his murder in the night of August 23, 2008, although as many as 26 hours before the murder, he had informed the Police that there was threat to his life.

After the murder of Laxmanananda BJP has tried to use him posthumously for consolidation of its vote bank, but its coalition government has not net in the real murderer.

This, he said, points the needle of suspicion for the murder of Laxmananand to the BJP and its allies, which they might have done in thirst for votes.

He cited the instance of Kendrapara where a BJP leader had organized bombardment on the house of another leader of his own party with the motive to project the crime as an act of Muslims, so that communal passions ignited against the minority community could have helped the saffronists in having a new polarized vote bank in their favor. There is no reason not to see the same modus operandi in the murder of Laxmananand, Mishra thundered.

Referring to Togadia’s tirades as reported by the Press, Mishra wondered as to how and why the BJP Ministers sharing the dais with Togadia at that time were not taken to task for having not protested against the acerbic words hurled at their Chief Minister. Recitation of the reported words by Mishra was unbearable for the BJD members and even as they squealed, Mishra went ahead to cite Puri Sankaracharya who had alleged that it is the Chief Minister who alone should be held responsible for the murder. The CM, Mishra wondered, was unable to stop the crime as he was dependent on the Sangh Parivar to stay in power and the Sangh Parivar was to make a sacrifice of Laxmanananda at the altar of their ambition that could be fulfilled only through electoral politics. To put his apprehensions on a supportive base, he read out a letter of the Sangh Parivar that was pregnant with the conspiracy as published in a printed edition of Lokamat.

This was more than enough for the BJP members and their BJD allies to digest. They rushed into the well of the Hall demanding deletion of Mishra’s citations.

Under the waves of uproar that soon engulfed the House, Kalpataru Das of BJD was allowed to raise a point of order when Ms. Draupadi Murmu of BJP was in the Chair and as Das started saying, the microphone of Mishra was laid inoperative. The Opposition stood in protest and the pandemonium took a turn towards the worse. In that oral free for all environment inside the Hall, Bahinipati ventured the most condemnable offense against the Chair. He whisked out an earphone and hurled it at the august authority. Democracy was defiled as never before in the very heart of its throne.

Rightly he has been put under suspension. His is an offense that no lover of democracy can tolerate.

But it is also a fact that had the House not been goaded by the treasury bench members into the environment that precipitated the offense, what happened might not have happened at all.

If the peoples of the State are now unable to know the behind the screen reality that could have addressed appropriately to the issue put on agenda of the Assembly by the treasury side itself, whom to blame except the treasury side?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The ruling alliance’s calling attention notice on killing of Hindu religious revivalist Laxmananand Saraswati in Kandhamal and the consequent communal violence could not be taken up for discussion on December 10, as the Government failed to appreciate that it should provide the House with a White Paper for facilitating an informed debate.

The House was dragged into confusion by the Government side when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Raghunath Mohanty asserted that a White Paper could not be released, as a Judicial Commission of Inquiry is investigation the matter. Then, the Opposition wondered, how can the Government continue its calling attention business without transgressing into the issues before the commission?

Pandemonium, begun with the Speaker calling the House to discuss the notice, continued to cause repeated adjournments till finally the House was posted to the next working day.