Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
The last voice of Congress in Orissa, which the people were hearing with rapt attention, may no more resound if resignation of Sri Satya Prakash Nayak is accepted by the Congress Party.
Sri Nayak, one of the finest journalists contemporary Orissa has ever seen, had left his profession to join the Congress in order only to help the people regain necessary vision to see through the reality of Naveen’s administration, which thrieves through propaganda, despite being fragrantly anti-people, shockingly incompetent, brazenly corrupt and a shrewd partner of the BJP. His activities in the Congress were compelling the people to re-address their attention to the Party that not only has helped us have our freedom from foerign yoke, but also had faught against and discarded the rotten right-wing syndicate in the Indira days.
Who am I to say in favor of Satya? I am that man, whom Mr. Rajiv Gandhi had choosen to be the Congress Candidate in place of the sitting Chief Minister J. B. Patnaik. Despite very deep political differences with Sri Patnaik, he was the doyen of journalism, who, as the Editor of Eastern Times, was my basic inspiration to prepare myself for journalism. He was a great political visionary whom Orissa could not properly use. Therefore, despite full and complete ideological differences, I had a very respectable place for Mr. J.B. Patnaik in my heart in perpetuum. Hence, I had refused to accept the Party Ticket Mr. Gandhi had not only given, but also had deputed Ms. Mamata Banerjee and Mr. Ajit Panja to help me in electioneering in Athgarh, his constituency. Somebody from within had cried against grabbing his constituency taking advantage of the situation.
Time has changed its ways many a times. But, till Communists are ready to take over, Congress Party has remained for me the only way to emancipation from political draculas discernible in the BJD and the BJP.
Therefore, I make this appeal to the Congress High Command: Never accept the resignation of Mr. Satya Prakash Nayak. Orissa needs him most in this critical political juncture when Bharat Jodo Yatra is to succeed in this soil too.
Many a sincere supporters of Congress, who were leading the students and youth in Orissa in the past, and despite brilliant political sense, are conspicuous by their absence in the present set-up of the provincial committee. The PCC should locate them eagerly and bring all of them to the forefront of the party so that the much needed environment of confidence of the general public in Congress could be cultivated with vigor and political potency.
If Orissa is to be saved, Congress is to be strengthened.