Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
A tainted leader of Orissa’s ruling party, which is home to many corrupt fellows, died. Till his death, he could not establish that he was not a punishable offender.
He was Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s blue-eyed-boy, his cabinet colleague, his guide and his top preference for the Upper House of India’s Parliament.
Therefore, he was the leader of the BJD wing in Rajya Sabha. He was Kalpataru Das.
But, as is said, “Time and Tide wait for none”, the Time enjoys its own freedom to act as it likes. It sometimes randomly beams light into the dark sanctuary of criminals and they get exposed.
This happened to Kalpataru. He was earlier noted for many acts of corruption. But his latest nefarious involvement in land and housing scams as well as in chit fund got unexpectedly exposed in August-September last year. He had to resign from BJD leadership in the Rajya Sabha on September 12, 2014 and the BJD “supremo” had to “appoint” superb user of hockey stick Dillip Tirkey in his place, though, despite this, he continued in Rajya Sabha to the full enjoyment of privileges of the Parliament.
Till death, as is noted above, he could not establish that he was not a felonious offender.
Orissa’s mainstream media house “Eastern Media Ltd”, the owner of which Sri Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, who aspires to lead the political State, was a major carrier of information on Kalpataru’s three exposed offenses noted above in its flagship ‘The Sambad’. But, it was not limited to that. In course of updating, it had raised the question as to why his earlier offenses are not being investigated into for penal prosecution.
Body selling of newspapers has become so much the practice under houses that publish newspapers for money, not for guarding the democracy as its sentinel, that the same newspaper ‘The Sambad’ of the same “Eastern Media Ltd” of the same Soumya Ranjan Patnaik has forced upon the people of Orissa the same Kalpataru Das as “Yuga Purusa” (the best person of our time). Whither our journalism?
Prostitutes sell their bodies for money, now newspapers do. What a magic of plutocracy! What a shame! What a degradation for money!
Newspapers are owned by business houses guided by avarice. People who bear the cost of production and because of whose support ads come, revenue multiples, media owners fetch profit, have no control over the contents.
How the people will take it?
I find the feeling of the people in a poem written instantly by former Banker Tusarkant Satapathy who, post retirement, has emerged a social activist and an accomplished columnist.
Here is this poem:
We will appreciate if Eastern Media reacts.
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