Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Government quarters in Bhubaneswar are allotted to entitled persons under the Special Accommodation Rules (SAR). It is stipulated therein that allotment of quarters must be refused to two types of entitled persons: one, who has his/her house in Bhubaneswar and two, who has already a quarter under his/her possession.The Department of General Administration (GA) administers the SAR and the Chief Minister is the Minister of GA.
Now it transpires from a written statement given by the CM to a question by Congress MLA Hema Gomang that 35 members of the House are occupying more than one official quarter in Bhubaneswar, despite most of them having their own houses in the capital city, in blatant contravention of the guiding rules. They are: former Speaker Maheswar Mohanty, incumbent Speaker Kishore Mohanty, Deputy Chief Whip Mohan Charan Majhi, MLA Bishnu Chanran Das, Kalpataru Das, JN Mitra, Himanshu Sekhar Mehar, Sanchita Mohanty, Niranjan Patnaik, Balabhadra Majhi, Gourahari Nayak, Padmanav Behera, Yogendra Behera, Niranjan Pujari, Brundaban Majhi, Bir Sipka, Nalinikanta Mohanty, Ayub Khan, Sarada Prasanna Nayak, Md. Rafiq, Ajit Hembram, Ramaranjan Baliarsingh, Arun Kumar Sahu, Binod Patra, Rabinaran Nayak and Sarat Pakiray.
Interestingly, the Chief Minister’s cabinet colleagues are also in this list. They are:
Panchayati Raj Minister Raghunath Mohanty, Steel and Mines Minister Pradeep Amat, Labour and Employment Minister Pradeep Nayak, Planning and Coordination Minister Duryodhan Majhi and School and Mass Education Minister Sanjeeb Sahu.
If lawmakers are raping the Laws why the Chief Minister should play the role of an abettor? But he plays. That is the absurdity Orissa has made a tryst with.