Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
India has a federal structure on unitary basis. Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh is associated with acts of offense against this constitutional structure.
He will be ill remembered in history for having sabotaged Indian Constitution from behind to facilitate advancement of plutocracy. Whenever offense against democracy through words like “Notes for votes” would be searched for, search engines would certainly display his name prominently. But we in Orissa are witnessing in newspaper front pages at present that he has no qualms in violating the federal structure of India using its unitary basis to his motivated advantage.
The peoples of Orissa are ready for election to the State Assembly as well as to the Loksabha.
As the elections knocked at the door, Chief Minister Navin Patnaik coined a scheme to hijack poor peoples’ vote by expressing his concern for their wretchedness and by offering them rice at Rs.2 a Kg.
His mandarins forced the dealers to project him as the provider of this benefit obviously with the intention to prompt the peoples below the poverty line who have continuously been suffering from slow starvation to find in him the redeemer and to vote for him.
Congress saw through the game and wanted to show the starving peoples that in making rice available to them at Rs.2 a Kg, Navin has a minor role. The major role is played by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it wanted the peoples to know.
Accordingly, Sonia’s political factotums here built up scenarios to compel the Election Commission to order for removal of the display boards from distribution centers that projected Navin as the provider of rice in so cheap a rate.
And then the Congress Party started the advertisement adventure in newspaper majors to project Manmohan Singh as the real provider of rice in cheap rate.
The language used in these advertisements is calculatedly mischievous.
Singh’s picture prominently displayed, the Congress, whose official candidate is he this time for the post of PM, in its advertisements shows that the Food Corporation of India, working under Singh, bears the cost of rice at Rs.16 and pays Rs.11 for every Kg of rice that Navin’s government supplies at Rs.2. Hence, the State Government’s contribution is only Rs.3 a Kg as against Rs.11 contributed by the Government of Singh.
But the ad does not stop here. It goes on to say that State Government is guilty of habitual misappropriation of the central funds.
Knowing that peoples of Orissa are poetic in nature, the Prime Minister’s advertisements carry a poetic stanza in Oriya that is cleverly coined to dismiss the relevance of the State. Roughly translated into English it is: “Whatever one sees around him or her and everywhere in the State is the contribution of Manmhan Singh’s Government. Whatsoever welfare is done is done only by the assistance given by the Center. The State Government claims credit only through falsehood and treachery”.
Use of denigrating words like “falsehood and treachery” by a Prime Minister against a State Government is a serious offense against the federal spirit of the Union of India.
Manmohan Singh has not spent single paise from his father’s or his personal purse for Orissa.
He is the Prime Minister of the Union of India and the Union of India is bound to provide funds to the constituent States for welfare projects. Had he tried to stop, he would never have succeeded.
He had stopped establishment of the National Institute of Science in Orissa.
Depending as then he was on the mercy of left MPs hailing mostly from West Bengal to stay in power, he had helped that State to hijack the National Institute of Science originally earmarked by the UGC for Orissa.
We the peoples of Orissa had thrashed him politically, intellectually, morally and legally.
He had no other way than correcting himself by placing a new version of NIS that has come to be known as the National Institute of Science and Research.
Had he stopped central funding for Orissa’s welfare, we the peoples of Orissa would certainly have forced him to correct the wrong as we did in the case of the Science Institute.
So, Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister was bound to provide funds for development projects in Orissa and the members of the Parliament coming from all over the Country had ensured that Orissa gets her share at par with all other provinces.
The Prime Ministerial candidate of Congress, Manmohan Singh has no right to claim credit for what the Prime Minister of India had to do under direction of the Parliament.
Some may argue that the Congress has published the objectionable advertisements for which Prime Minister Singh cannot be blamed.
It may even be argued that the ads being in Oriya, the PM might not have known the contents thereof.
There is no reason to believe that he does not know the contents of the ads carrying his endorsement through his photo. However, now as we are publishing this remark in a global media, propounder, if any, of such argument may bring this to his notice and see if he dissociates himself from such ads and instantly.
It is never acceptable that a Prime Minister of India plays havoc with the constitutional structure of the Country through advertisements mischievously composed and intentionally published with the sole motive to obliterate the relevance of State Administration and to deliberately defame the State Government.
The issue is urgent and it craves urgent attention.