Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
In a legislative house monstrous majority of the ruling party generates an environment where compradors use power to build up their empires at the cost of democracy.
With 117 out of 147 seats in Orissa Assembly, the ruling BJD will pursue its agenda of serving the foreign and Indian private sector like the POSCO and Vedanta more vigorously and the poor peasants and proletariat of Orissa, who are so much devoid of purchasing power that rice at Re.1 per kg is provided to them for saving their life from starvation deaths, would suffer imperilment exactly as the fishes that rush into the fisherman’s net perish.
State terror would more menacingly be unleashed to suppress the voices of protest against displacement and oppression. Mother Orissa would more aggressively be denuded of whatever mineral wealth she has yet preserved and of waters her rivers yet save the people with.
Dark days would soon overwhelm Orissa, as ruling politicians having earned the expertise in fetching votes despite having put the people in debacles, will not bother about how the common man would perish under industrialization.
The Executive that has produced even multimillionaire peons in government offices in the BJD regime would be more ruthlessly accommodative to loot of the exchequer, as the massive majority the government in the Assembly would create for the regime’s corrupt collaborators the safest haven.
At such a critical juncture, the last hope or lost hope is Opposition, howsoever small be its size. Members of only three parties – Congress, BJP, and Samatakranti – may constitute the Opposition. Two independents could be known by their actions in future.
So, regardless of who rules the State, the most precious for the people of Orissa shall be Narasingh Mishra, Chiranjibi Biswal, Jogesh Singh, Prafulla Majhi, Tara Prasad Bahinipati, Bhujubal Majhi, Krushna Sagadia, Nabakishore Das, Surya Rao , Amshuman Mohanty, Subala Sahu , Jacob Pradhan, Chandra Sekhar Majhi, Prakash Behera, and Kailash Kulsika of the Congress Party and Dillip Ray, Nitish Gangadev, Basanta Panda, Radharani Panda, Duryodhan Majhi Rabi Nayak, Bibhuti Harichandan, Govind Das and Pradip Purohit of BJP as well as George Tirkey of Samata Kranti and the lone Communist Lakhmana Munda from Bonai.
Let them – specifically the members of Congress and BJP – stay away from mindless loyalty to their central bosses and act in honor of the faith the people of Orissa have put on them in their respective constituencies. Let them not forget that the election was nothing but a veiled contest between American imperialism sponsored by Sonia and Manmohan Singh and Indian capitalism epitomized by Narendra Modi. Orissa has rejected both those parties quite clearly. Hence let them appreciate that they are elected on the basis of their personal acceptability to the people of Orissa belonging to their respective constituencies.
They will make a mistake by taking that in electing them the people have elected their parties.
Hence, let them act as individual and collective sentinels of interest of the people of Orissa as otherwise the State cannot be saved from the clutches of the compradors representing the interests of POSCO and Vedanta and the likes.
Let them remember that they are the last hope or the lost hope for Orissa in the present phase.