Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Both of them, Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Chief Minister of Orissa, Sri Naveen Patnaik are one despite dissimilarities. Their defined dissimilarity lies in their political banners. But they are discernibly similar in offense against India’s common man.
Singh has sabotaged India’s dream for socialism and has subjected the country to American hegemony and for all time to come from now when question would arise as to who dragged our liberty into the pernicious labyrinth of the anarchy called free economy, patriotic Indians would point their fingers at him.
Yet, the way Naveen Patnaik is engaging his sycophants in campaign against Manmohan Singh government is deplorable.
Patnaik’s is not a campaign against Singh’s pro-American and anti-Indian policies. His campaign is against union government’s objections to illegalities resorted to by industries like Vedanta and POSCO.
His is an attempt to mislead people of Orissa against the Union and is clearly anti-national-integration. His speech to students wing of his party at Bhubaneswar on December 5 is a speaking instance.
This must not be tolerated any further.
He must be stopped from endangering national integration the way he has started to do.
But he cannot be stopped as long as the present Assembly, where his sycophants form the majority, is alive. In our system, though the Assembly is a playground for number games, when number supremacy makes it numb, the occasion arises to dissolve it to save democracy. That occasion has arrived.
One who watches the Assembly in session feels disappointed at the decadence of democracy. It needs to be remedied.
President’s rule seems to be the only remedy available in the circumstances. Every step must be taken to stop the State government campaigning against the Union. A political party campaigning against another political party is politically permissible; but not a State Government against the Union Government. The sooner this danger to democracy is removed, the better.