Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
BJD candidate for Athgarh, R. P. @ Raja Swain filed his nomination papers yesterday with much fanfare. On my way to my village, I was stunned by what I saw.
Most of his followers were drunk, who made all nuisances on the road. Some were hurling bawdy, vulgar words at imagined challengers and some were in such unmanageable condition due to inebriety that lifting them out from midst of the roads was being necessary.
I got it from silent onlookers that hundreds of bundles of currency notes of Rs. 500/- denomination were paid to workers at their places at the rate of one such note for two persons, as paying Rs.250/- per head was not advantageous.
If Swain is not the fountainhead of this flow of Rs.500 notes and not the shadow patron of these drunkards, he should bring to discipline whomsoever he had relied upon to organize this procession. Election processions are not meant to intimidate any rival candidate or any reluctant voter with show of beastly strength.
If followers of all the BJD candidates are drunkards and users of vulgar words like these Swain supporters, and if this is a tactic to browbeat rivals or freethinking voters, Naveen Patnaik should feel ashamed of what he has done to political environment of Orissa.