Opposition parties pursued the right approach in Kalahandi; almost.
Elections 2009 May 17th. 2009, 1:04pmFollowing are some excerpts from a news item in tathya.in.
While BJD has received an overwhelming support all over Orissa, Kalahandi district rejected the party.
The regional outfit not only lost the Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat but also the four, Junagarh, Bhawanipatna, Lanjigarh and Narla, out of five Assembly seats to the Congress party in the district.
… In 2004 General Elections to the Lok Sabha and Assembly Kalahandi district was swept by BJD and BJP combine.
However, BJD suffered serious jolt in Kalahandi on local issues.
Demand for the Central University in Kalahandi played a pivotal role in this regard, feel intelgentsia.
Self-made complications by Naveen Patnaik on this matter further made local people angry.
When the Chief Minister met a delegation from Kalahandi in May 2008 he promised that Kalahandi will get the varsity.
Mr.Patnaik promised to use his best rapport in the Ministry of Human Recourse Development to establish the Central University in Kalahandi.
The Chief Minister also asked the delegation to send land details.
Despite receiving the land details from the Collector of Kalahandi in July 2008, Orissa CM, later in August 2008 unilaterally announced to establish the Central University in Koraput.
Thus he courted controversy and wrath of the young masses of the tribal zone.
Serious protests were raised in Kalahandi.
Gauzing the public emotions in the District, Congress Committee of Kalahandi immediately made it a political issue.
The party protested to State Government and exposed it as betrayal to people of Kalahandi by the Government.
This paid high dividends to the Congress party in the district during the election by getting substantially support from educated and intellectual mass in the district.
Just two months before election, local Congress leaders’ timely attack on Kalahandi district administration while highlighting poor condition of
National Highway 201 caused by heavily loaded truck of Vedanta during mining transportation made State Government vulnerable to local public.Other local issues like poor progress of Lanjigarh Road – Junagarh railway line, poor progress of private medical college, new secondary health facilities, and failure to construct a high laying over bridge over Hati river near Junagarh since past five years made local people upset against BJD led Government.
This is an example of what I suggested in http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/archives/2227 regarding what the opposition parties in Orissa should do.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Since, it is rumoured that, bhakta charan Babu will be a minister, I would like to see him work on the issues raised by him like
a)Junagadh – Lanjigarh railway line.(Actually a Central Govt. failure)
b)Health- facilities.(State Govt. failure)
c)Progress in Pvt Medical college(This is the biggest failure of the BJD Govt.)
d)Bridge over Hati river.(BJD failure)