Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Orissa Legislative Assembly could not proceed with the motion of thanks on the Governor’s address on February 3, 2006 as the Opposition insisted upon stock taking of the situation arising out of Kalinga nagar massacre that has taken a toll of 12 lives of the tribal community displaced by the syndicate comprising Orissa government and the Tata house.
Even as Governor Rameswar Thakur went on reading his written budget speech, the entire Opposition concussed the well of the house with vociferous protests, refusing to pay attention to the speech prepared by the government, which, they said, being evidently anti-people, had no moral right to rule the state. The leader of Opposition, J.B.Patnaik, was even seen reading aloud an unknown document at par with the delivery of the formal speech by the Governor, who was not without knowing that the very purpose of his speech was getting defeated as the Opposition for whom the speech was basically meant had closed its ears to whatever he was to say.
One after another the members of the Opposition were tearing out pages of the printed speech of the Governor while lacerating the government layer by layer, as their gestures suggested, for dastardly favoring the Tata industries in total disregard to the minimum and essential interest of our own people.
The House had to adjourn after discernible attempts of an abysmally low number of the ruling combine’s backbenchers failed to counter the Opposition impact.
But, tomorrow when the House shall resume after two days, will it transact its business as per the list of business supposed to be in vogue by then? Considering the confrontationist stances of both the sides, it is difficult to say ‘yes’.
Conveying united Opposition’s collective wisdom, Leader of Opposition Mr. J.B.Patnaik has made it clear that thanks giving on Governor’s speech can wait, but stock taking of Kalinga Nagar massacre can’t.