Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Taking the cue from the Supreme Court of India stance against statue setting spree of UP Chief Minister Mayavati, the High Court of Orissa or the SC itself should take steps to dismantle deification of Biju Patnaik that his son Navin, being in advantage as the State CM, has been relentlessly doing at the cost of the State Exchequer.
In the Apex Court yardstick applied in Mayavati’s case, commissioning of Biju’s statues in public places and naming of official institutes and projects in Biju’s name cannot be anything but Navin’s self and family glorification willfully crafted for political gain.
It is better for the Apex Court to appreciate that Navin Patnaik is heading a government run by a regional political party called Biju Janata Dal and therefore naming of official institutes and welfare projects after him like the Biju Patnaik University of Technology or Biju KBK Yojana, Biju Kandhamal Yojana, Biju Gajapati Yojana, Biju Gram Jyoti Yojana etc by forcing the State exchequer to cough up funds for the same cannot but be political misuse of the taxpayers’ money.
The Supreme Court verdicts / directives are accepted as laws enforceable everywhere in India. So the SC directives issued in Mayavati context are also enforceable in Orissa.
Is it not proper for the Supreme Court to stop derailment of democracy in Orissa that the incumbent CM has been doing by forcing the State Exchequer to bear the cost of glorification of his father after death though, in fact, when alive, he was refused by the majority of Orissa a fresh mandate?
Is it not proper for the Supreme Court to see that no official institution and / or project funded by the State Exchequer should be named after a man in whose name a ruling syndicate has formed a political party as thereby the beneficiaries of the government program may be misled by the nomencletural mischief into electoral traps laid by the said ruling syndicate in its own nefarious interest?
Is it not proper for the Supreme Court to appreciate that christening official institutes and programs in Orissa by the name of Biju by his son Navin is more dangerous to democracy than setting up of statues of Kansiram or herself by Mayavati in UP; because, in Orissa, the ruling party is named after Biju and hence naming of welfare projects after him would sure lead the gullible public to mistake them as contributions of the ruling party or more specifically of Biju’s son?
Is it therefore not proper for the Supreme Court to extend its UP order / directives to whole of India and specifically to Orissa and to dismantle deification of Biju Patnaik by his vested interest son Navin, which he has been doing all these days by misuse of the State Exchequer?
In various cases like the ‘unauthorized occupation of government quarters in different provinces’, the Supreme Court has extended its orders, pronounced in individual state matters, to whole of India, keeping in mind the necessity of administrative fairplay and discipline. So, it would be proper for the Supreme Court to extend its UP order to Orissa on the grounds noted supra.