BHUBANESWAR: BJD leader Sujata Rout Karthikeyan on Wednesday came down heavily on the Centre, alleging that the MMDR Amendment Act was designed to take away Odisha’s constitutional rights over its mineral resources.
In a video statement, Sujata said the Act strikes at the federal structure and undoes the benefit Odisha had secured from the Supreme Court’s landmark July 2024 verdict. In that judgement, a nine-judge Constitution bench had affirmed the right of states to levy tax on mineral rights and mineral-bearing lands.
She said in 2004, the BJD-BJP alliance government in the state, headed by Naveen Patnaik, had passed the Orissa Rural Infrastructure and Socio-Economic Development (ORISED) Act. “The legislation had the support of BJD, BJP and Congress. The aim of the Act was to levy tax on the mineral-bearing land and utilise the money for the development of Odisha,” the BJD leader said.
She said the mining companies and mine owners were opposed to the Act from the very beginning and the BJD government fought a long legal battle against them to protect constitutional rights of the state. The BJP government also fought against mine owners and companies after coming to power in 2024, Sujata said. “The Centre brought the MMDR Amendment Bill, 2026 in the Lok Sabha in August and 20 BJP MPs from Odisha remained silent,” she said.