Polls a desertion time for Congress
Congress is always at the receiving end in Odisha with senior leaders quitting the party at regular intervals. This trend of senior leaders betraying the party started with then Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh who resigned in March, 2014 elections and joined ruling BJD just before the general elections. Later on, two working presidents Naba Kishore Das and Pradeep Majhi also quit the party in 2018 and joined BJD, again before the 2019 elections. Now with speculation of an early election doing the rounds, all eyes are again on Congress. This time a couple of new players like the Aam Admi Party (AAP) and Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) are all set to enter the electoral arena of the state in 2024. Sources in the Congress said that a couple of senior Congress legislators are waiting for the green signal to join AAP along with their supporters towards January-end when the party is planning a grand public meeting at Bhubaneswar. But the Congress is not bothered. OPCC president Sarat Pattanayak maintains that Congress is a big political party and if a couple leaders quit it will make no difference. He said new leaders will come up in their place.
~Bijay Chaki
Mahatab’s BJD days are over!
Senior BJD leader and Lok Sabha MP from Cuttack Bhatruhari Mahatab is in news for wrong reasons. The rumour mill in the state capital has been in overdrive ever since a section of the BJP floated the idea that the party is in touch with Mahatab and he is more than willing to accept the offer of contesting the next general election from Cuttack. A senior leader of the saffron party told the TNIE that Mahatab, who has been winning from the seat on BJD ticket consecutively five times from 1999 onwards, has a hunch that he will not be considered for a sixth term as the party supremo Naveen Patnaik has other things in mind. There has been widespread speculation that the regional satrap has made up his mind to follow the Gujarat model where BJP made a sweeping change by denying tickets to many sitting MLAs and bet on new faces in the recent Assembly polls which delivered a massive win for the saffron party that is in power since 1995. In a similar situation with five consecutive terms in power, such a gamble may prove a success for the BJD.
~Bijoy Pradhan
LED drought for hockey World Cup
Event organisers and people in the business of LED screens, LED and LCD television sets made a brisk business this month, thanks to the hockey frenzy state administration. To take hockey to each and every village, the state government had directed districts to ensure visual arrangements for the opening ceremony of the men’s hockey World Cup on January 11 in all panchayats and urban localities. Universities and colleges were also asked to make such arrangements for students. The demand for electronic screens shot up so high that the traders in neighbouring states also failed to meet it. Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation had to shun its earlier plan of setting up camps at different locations in the city as the civic body could not arrange the LED screens. Same was the case with some other cities and towns in the state. The demand was so high that the electronic screens were not even available for purchase, let alone hiring. But Cuttack Municipal Corporation was smarter as it managed to put up LED screens at several locations in the city for direct telecast of the ceremony.
~Hemant Kumar Rout