ODISHA

Strengthening base

Prafulla Das

AS the Sangh Parivar works to strengthen its base in Odisha with an eye on the 2019 elections, a sense of apprehension continues to oppress the minority community across the State.

Six years after Kandhamal district witnessed the worst ever anti-Christian violence, more than 5,000 Christian people who had left Kandhamal in August 2008 are yet to return to their homes. The violence had followed the murder of the VHP leader Swami Lakshmanananda, allegedly by Maoists. Church activities have slowed down drastically after two rounds of anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal in 2007 and 2008. The Sangh Parivar is now working in an organised way to counter the churches in the tribal-dominated regions.

Many of the BJP’s national leaders have visited the State in the past few months. The Parivar seems to be adopting the tactics that had benefited the BJP in rural Bihar and Chhattisgarh. BJP leaders have identified 35 Assembly seats that are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes and another 15 Assembly seats that have more than 25 per cent tribal voters.

Now with a BJP government at the Centre, an elated Parivar has decided to increase the number of Ekal Vidyalayas, one-teacher schools, by ten times in the tribal areas. Ekal Vidyalayas, funded by the Friends of Tribals Society, are being strengthened with the appointment of one supervisor for 10 such schools, to impart non-formal education to tribal children not attending regular schools. Those managing the affairs of the Parivar are happy that in Kandhamal and Boudh districts, the majority of Sanskrit teachers working in the schools belong to the tribal Kondh community and were educated in the two Ashram schools that were run by the late Lakshmanananda.

Besides, the Parivar is also planning to unite and strengthen the Saraswati Shishu Mandir schools across the State. With the Shishu Mandirs emerging as an alternative to the poorly managed government schools, many dissident Shishu Mandir schools have come up in all parts of the State in recent years. The Odisha BJP organising secretary, who is on deputation from the RSS, is likely to take charge of the Shishu Mandir schools before the next elections.

In fact, as many as 40 Sangh Parivar outfits are covertly trying their best to polarise Odisha on communal lines. Using Odisha as a Hindutva laboratory, the Parivar had succeeded in polarising the State after the Kandhamal riots in 2008, but the BJP did not separate itself from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) immediately after that. As a result, the party failed to get votes when the BJD broke the alliance a few days before the 2009 elections.

The anger that Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik had generated in the minds of BJP leaders in 2009 has not died down. Hence, Parivar workers in the rural areas are all charged up following Narendra Modi’s assumption of office as Prime Minister. In a State where Muslims and Christians hardly have a presence, they try to make the BJP’s hands stronger by wooing Dalits and taking up issues relating to the Jagannath temple in Puri.

When there was a rift between the administration and the Shankaracharya of Puri with regard to the rituals surrounding the Rath Yatra in the recent past, the Parivar organisations as well as BJP leaders sided with the Shankaracharya. An organisation has now started working in Puri in the name of cleanliness and for the closure of liquor and meat shops in the temple town.

No other party has so many outfits working with different social groups in Odisha. The Sangh Parivar and the BJP, meanwhile, carry on with their determined efforts to make their organisation broad-based by inducting people from Other Backward Classes and Dalit and tribal groups.

Probe into Kandhamal riots nowhere near completion

Probe into Kandhamal riots nowhere near completion
PRAFULLA DAS

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Truth about the anti-Christian riots in Odisha’s Kandhamal district in 2008 may not come to light even after the arrest of top Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda as the Commission of Inquiry probing it is likely to complete the inquiry only after one and a half years from now.

Though the police have named Panda as the main accused in the murder of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati that triggered riots and the case may take a few years to be disposed of in the court, the Commission is still in the process of examining the witnesses. The final report of the Commission is likely to bring out the truth about the circumstances leading to the murder and the subsequent riots that claimed at least 30-odd lives and burning down of hundreds of houses.

The one-man probe panel, being headed by retired Orissa High Court judge Justice A.S. Naidu, is taking more time primarily due to lack of cooperation from the Odisha government as well as witnesses who had filed affidavits before it, official sources told The Hindu on Saturday.

In fact, the Commission, which was set up in September 2008 under Justice Sarat Chandra Mohapatra, had not received a single affidavit initially even after it published two advertisements seeking information about the murder and the riots.

The Commission is probing the sequence of events and circumstances leading to the murder of Saraswati at his Jalespata ashram in Kandhamal between 7 50 p.m. and 8 15 p.m. on August 23, 2008.

The panel is also probing the role of individuals in precipitating the murder and the subsequent riots, and also the role of organisations, groups and agencies precipitating the communal violence and measures taken by the State government in anticipation of the riots.

It had started receiving affidavits only after it requested all District Collectors in the State to circulate the notice about the probe that requiring people to file affidavits.

Though the VHP leader was allegedly shot dead by Maoists on August 23 evening, riots broke out in different parts of Kandhamal after Mr. Saraswati’s funeral procession was taken out from Jalespata ashram to Chakapada ashram located at the other end of the district by the Sangh Parivar on August 25.

The parivar alleged that members of the Christian community were behind the murder of Mr. Saraswati.

The Commission, which received 750 affidavits from both government and private persons, has so far examined 65 government officials, including top police and administration staff, and as many as 170 private witnesses, including BJP leader and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram.

Many private witnesses were yet to be examined and more government officials may be examined if their names figured during the examination of any witness in the coming days, sources said. The Commission had submitted an interim report to the State government in June 2009 when Justice Mohapatra was heading it.

Justice Mohapatra passed away in May 2012 after which Justice Naidu had taken charge.

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Commission still examining the witnesses

Lack of government cooperation alleged

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Conjurer of Odisha

Surpassing its own expectations, the Biju Janata Dal led by Naveen Patnaik romps home with 117 of the 147 Assembly seats. By PRAFULLA DAS in Bhubaneswar

THE scale of the victory of the Biju Janata Dal led by Naveen Patnaik in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections held simultaneously in the State has taken many by surprise. The incumbent Chief Minister was seeking a fourth consecutive term in the face of anti-incumbency and rebel factors.

The BJD won 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats and 117 of the 147 Assembly seats. In the 2009 elections, the party won 14 Lok Sabha seats and 103 Assembly seats. Significantly, its vote share in the Lok Sabha elections increased from 37.24 per cent in 2009 to 44.1 per cent this time and the vote share in the Assembly elections from 38.86 per cent to 43.4 per cent. Patnaik has taken the oath as Chief Minister for the fourth consecutive term, thereby creating a record. He is the first leader to become Chief Minister of Odisha for four times, and in a row.

Given the fact that both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were way behind the BJD in terms of strength, popularity and leadership, nobody had doubts about its victory. But even BJD leaders admit in private that they too were surprised by the outcome.

Almost all the winners in the BJD credit Patnaik with leading the party to an emphatic victory. Many of the leaders who were expecting to win by a few thousand votes have won by margins of 20,000 votes and more.

The BJD president’s magic touch was evident in the earlier elections too. In 2009, his close aide in the party, Pyarimohan Mohapatra, accurately predicted that the party would win 103 Assembly seats. This time also, Patnaik’s close aide and party vice-president Kalpataru Das claimed that the party’s Assembly seats could go up to 120. He was not way off the mark.

What kept Patnaik’s party ahead of both the Congress and the BJP was his continuous effort to build a sense of regional identity among Odias living in and outside the State. It is another matter that Patnaik himself cannot read, write or speak Odia. The few instances he has made speeches in Odia in public have been with the help of texts transliterated into English.

In the absence of other strong regional parties, Patnaik was also successful in projecting himself and his party as the champions of the cause of the State, notwithstanding the fact that 14 years of his rule had not brought about any significant change in Odisha’s status as the country’s most backward State.

If Narendra Modi promised good days ahead and succeeded in making the BJP emerge victorious at the national level, Patnaik, since he assumed power in the State for the first time in March 2000, has been making promises of building a prosperous Odisha that his father, Biju Patnaik, had dreamt of. The people of Odisha reposed their faith in him and were expecting that Biju babu’s dreams would be fulfilled by his worthy son some day.

The anti-Centre stand adopted by Patnaik since the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance assumed power in New Delhi in 2004 also worked in Patnaik’s favour. Even though the Union government conceded various demands of the State government and announced many pro-poor schemes, Patnaik continued to allege that the Centre was adopting a step-motherly attitude towards Odisha.

Patnaik’s government implemented Central schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the National Rural Health Mission and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and he took the entire credit for their success. He pitched in with his resources from the exchequer to provide rice at Re.1 a kg to woo the voters.

Furthermore, Patnaik succeeded in strengthening the party’s social base with a lot of other measures. A large number of below poverty line (BPL) families remained indebted to the BJD as Patnaik launched a series of pro-poor schemes that covered the entire lifespan of an individual. More than 57 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and the percentage of poor is higher among Dalits and tribal people.

Gender bender

After his party’s victory, Patnaik thanked women, who had voted for his party in large numbers despite an increase in the number of rape and other crimes against women.

Ensuring 50 per cent reservation for women in all the 100-odd urban local bodies across the State last year made him popular among women voters. Besides, there are thousands of women’s self-help groups.

Even as his government tried its best to facilitate the Vedanta Aluminium’s refinery project in Lanjigarh and created a situation conducive for the eviction of hundreds of tribal people to make space for bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills which is considered sacred by the Dongria Kondh tribals, Patnaik in February announced a Rs.12 crore package for the protection, conservation and development of 2,000 places of worship of tribal people. They constitute 22 per cent of the State’s population.

It is common knowledge that hundreds of thousands of tribal people who had been displaced to make way for industries are still awaiting rehabilitation.

Patnaik also kept the hopes of the poor alive by repeatedly demanding from the Central government a special category status for Odisha. With an eye to the elections, his party held a rally in New Delhi last year to highlight the demand, much like the one organised by former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

What helped Patnaik the most was a faction-ridden Congress. The main opposition party in the State was a divided house before the elections. The infighting cost it dear and its vote share in the Assembly elections dropped from 29.10 per cent in 2009 to 25.7 per cent in 2014. It won 16 Assembly seats as against its tally of 27 in 2009 and won no Lok Sabha seat (six seats in 2009).

The BJP, too, lacked organisational strength in the State. However, backed by the Sangh Parivar organisations that became active after Modi was named the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee, the saffron party became successful in increasing its vote share, from 15.05 per cent in 2009 to 18 per cent in 2014. It won a Lok Sabha seat (nil in 2009) and 10 Assembly seats (six in 2009).

In the Chief Minister’s chair for the fourth time, Patnaik is gearing up to fulfil many of the promises that he had not been able to keep in the past even as opposition parties are busy putting their houses in order.

Late swing?

Manas Rath/PTIPeople waiting to listen to Narendra Modi at an election rally in Sambalpur, Odisha, on March 14.

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Odisha

NOBODY had expected a drastic change on the political scene in Odisha until the Sangh Parivar succeeded in its attempts to project Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s prime ministerial candidate, with the support of a focussed publicity campaign.

A wave of support for Modi started sweeping many regions of the State just a few days before polling, thereby changing political equations and making things difficult for Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik.

As support for Modi started swelling, partly because of a strong anti-incumbency factor, psephologists too changed their predictions, projecting figures that were discouraging for the BJD.

Leaders of the BJD were surprised to witness the change in the voters’ mood. Until the “Modi wave” hit the State, the BJD top brass was confident of victory as the Congress, the main opposition party since 2000, had become a divided house. But strong triangular contests in almost all Parliamentary and Assembly seats in the State left everyone surprised.

In fact, until the ticket was allotted, neither the Congress nor the BJP could imagine that there was so much anger among the people against the ruling party and many of its sitting legislators. The BJD had appeared to have emerged stronger by inducting into its fold many prominent leaders from parties such as the Congress, the BJP, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) just days before the polls. Naveen Patnaik had succeeded in sending a strong signal to the opposition that he had virtually won the election even before it had been actually fought.

The Lok Sabha elections were influenced by the “Modi wave” and also by the fact that the BJD did not have any clear idea about its role in national politics, in order to keep its vote base intact. The BJD faced serious difficulties even in constituencies where its nominees had won with huge margins in the 2009 election.

When it came to the Assembly elections, the BJD had to handle multiple problems. Even as the nominees of a faction-ridden Congress failed to emerge as major challengers, dissidence within the BJD local units in many places made many of its supporters vote either for the Congress or for the BJP.

Further, many traditional supporters and sympathisers of Naveen Patnaik preferred to vote for the BJP because of Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections, without even considering the stature of the BJP candidates in many constituencies. This split among its voters affected the BJD’s prospects not only in the Lok Sabha but also in the Assembly elections. Though the people of Odisha had little knowledge about the Gujarat model of development, they were apparently swayed by the BJP’s “good days are ahead” slogan. Naveen Patnaik’s development plank, based on the freebies that he had announced for different sections of the voters, had little impact, particularly in the Lok Sabha elections.

The minority vote is also likely to influence the outcome in the two Lok Sabha constituencies of Sundargarh and Kandhamal, where members of the Christian community might have cast their votes either for the Congress or for the BJD. The Muslim votes might also have gone to the Congress or the BJD in places such as Cuttack, Bhadrak, Kendrapara and Bhubaneswar. However, since these communities constitute less than 5 per cent of the voters in the State, they are unlikely to have a big impact on the outcome.

As the BJD’s popularity was waning and the Congress had failed to strengthen itself, the BJP, which was organisationally weak since Patnaik parted ways with it before the 2009 election, emerged as a major force. Its revival was aided by the planned approach adopted by the Sangh Parivar and scores of its allies, including Baba Ramdev’s yoga outfits.

Corruption was not a major election issue in Odisha this time. This was mainly because Naveen Patnaik had largely remained silent over the corruption issue since his own government was involved in a series of scams such as the multi-crore mining scam, the chit fund scam, the MGNREGS scam and the dal scam.

In such a situation, the BJP managed to make the maximum gains as the Congress, which had earned a bad name for itself at the national level because of the various scams, failed to take on the BJD as a united force. Though the Congress had a good chance of returning to power in the State this time, it failed to project itself as a viable, united alternative to the BJD with a clear leadership.

In fact, the Congress has never fought an election as a united party since it was voted out in the 2000 Assembly elections. Leaders heading the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) were removed from their posts months before the general elections in 2004, 2009 and 2014, leaving the party practically leaderless.

Such was the level of infighting in the Odisha Congress unit that virtually no senior leader except Union Minister Srikant Jena, who later headed the party’s campaign committee in the State, was seen with OPCC president Jayadev Jena. Barring the election rallies that were addressed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, the Jenas failed to organise public meetings in support of their party nominees in any part of the State.

Speculation is now rife that the BJD may not find it easy to form the government on its own in the State for the fourth consecutive term. This is because both the Congress and the BJP are likely to substantially increase their strength in the 147-member Assembly. The BJD had won 103 seats, the Congress 27 and the BJP six in the 2009 polls.

The general opinion is that Naveen Patnaik may retain power because of the support his government had extended to women’s self-help groups across the State and the sops it had given to farmers, youth and families living below the poverty line. But it is also possible that the outcome may leave pollsters eating their own words.

Prafulla Das

Will BJP spring a surprise in Odisha?

PRAFULLA DAS

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Till recently, the contest was seen as one between BJD and Congress

Even though the date of counting is almost four weeks away and uncertainty prevails over outcome of the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls held in Odisha, the issue is now being discussed at almost every place across the State primarily because the elections were held simultaneously.

The issue is being discussed from various angles since many people had resorted to split ticket voting and political pundits and politicians are finding it hard to arrive at a conclusion.

Interaction with a large number of voters revealed that they had voted for one party to choose their Lok Sabha Member but for a different party to elect their legislator for the Assembly.

In fact, the situation was not so confusing till a few weeks before the polls. The general perception then was that the main contest will be between the ruling Biju Janata Dal and main opposition Congress in almost every Lok Sabha and Assembly constituency. Even opinion polls had made forecast on those lines.

But the scenario has apparently changed when BJP’s Prime Ministerial nominee Narendra Modi visited the State thrice to address election rallies. Soon the saffron party, which had not won even a single Lok Sabha seat and only six Assembly seats in the 2009 election, was viewed as a major contender in a majority of Lok Sabha constituencies and many Assembly segments in different regions of the State.

The sudden emergence of the BJP as a major contender for as many as four Lok Sabha seats in western, and many seats in northern and coastal Odisha, forced media houses to conduct a fresh round of opinion poll. The State has 21 Lok Sabha and 147 Assembly seats.

The high voter turnout in both phases of polling in the State had also added to the speculation over the poll outcome. The State recorded a turnout of 74.3 per cent in this election, against 65.3 per cent in 2009, when elections for Lok Sabha and Assembly were also held simultaneously.

The ruling party leaders were hopeful that their party will perform well in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, with the expectation that the anti-BJD votes would be divided among the Congress, the BJP, independents and other parties, while the BJP leaders were hoping for a miracle performance.

As regards the Congress, though many party leaders were not sure of winning as many Lok Sabha seats as they had did in 2009, they were hopeful of winning more Assembly seats than last year. The party had won six Lok Sabha and 27 Assembly seats in 2009.

While it is being observed that BJP is likely to perform better than Congress with regard to the Lok Sabha poll, the workers of the faction-ridden Congress are lamenting that they could have done much better in the Assembly poll had their party been able to take advantage of the anti-incumbency factor that existed against the ruling BJD.

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INFOGRAPHICS

Biju Janata Dal

GOING by the ground reality in Odisha, it seems that the findings of opinion polls with regard to the Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) performance in the Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections may go wrong. The party, which is headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, is likely to play a crucial role in the post-election coalition formation at the Centre.

He had initially shown some interest in a possible alternative front comprising parties belonging to the non-Congress, non-Bharatiya Janata Party category when meetings were held in New Delhi, but he subsequently preferred to stay aloof and take advantage of a possible fractured verdict.

The BJD survived in Odisha politics by having the BJP as an alliance partner from 1998 to 2009. It helped the party win two Assembly elections consecutively, in 2000 and 2004. After snapping its ties with the BJP before the 2009 general election, it got into a seat-sharing arrangement with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India to win the elections.

This is the first time the BJD is going to the polls without an alliance or seat-sharing arrangement with any party. Although it has kept itself detached from all parties, it has its options open to join hands with the BJP in the State and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance at the Centre in case it fails to win the Assembly elections, or become a partner in a non-Congress political formation at the Centre if it secures a majority in the State Assembly.

The BJD decimated the NCP much before the elections by inducting into its fold all four NCP legislators in the State Assembly. After deciding not to enter into any seat-sharing arrangement with the Left parties days before the announcement of the election schedule, the party attempted to have a seat-sharing arrangement with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), which has a strong base in the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh districts. But the scenario soon changed when Shibu Soren, the national president of the JMM, opposed the seat-sharing proposal. The BJD cleverly admitted many prominent JMM leaders, including JMM State unit president and former Lok Sabha member Sudam Marandi, thereby strengthening its base in northern Odisha.

In his attempt to win more Lok Sabha seats and secure a majority in the State Assembly, the BJD president also brought to his party fold many prominent leaders of the Congress, the BJP and the CPI.

The BJD came to power in the State in 2000 by joining hands with the BJP when the people voted out the Congress, which had earned a bad name under the rule of Chief Minister J.B. Patnaik, now Assam Governor. It initially talked of fighting corruption. But in the aftermath of the anti-Christian riots in Kandhamal district in 2008, the party ended its partnership with the BJP and talked primarily of development.

From 2009 onwards, the BJD has indulged in Centre-bashing, primarily to keep its vote bank intact. It kept blaming the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre for allegedly neglecting the cause of Odisha in various fields. It also continued to demand special category State status for Odisha. The party even organised a rally in New Delhi to press its demand though the State did not fulfil the criteria for being accorded such a status.

Naveen Patnaik, the founder president of the BJD, which came into being in December 1997 and was named after his late father Biju Patnaik to retain the anti-Congress vote base, has no doubt succeeded in carrying his father’s legacy forward and winning elections by selling his father’s dream of a prosperous Odisha. But this time he has a new opponent: Pyarimohan Mohapatra, his one-time adviser and election manager. A Rajya Sabha member, Mohapatra heads the Odisha Janmorcha, a party he floated with the sole intention of challenging Naveen Patnaik. The BJD president had branded him a traitor for allegedly engineering a coup attempt against him in May 2012.

It is not Mohapatra alone who has launched a new party. Several parties have been launched in the State recently, including the Ama Odisha Party (AMO) led by J.B. Patnaik’s son-in-law Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, and the Samata Kranti Dal led by Braja Kishore Tripathy, a former Union Minister and Naveen Patnaik’s erstwhile party colleague.

Naveen Patnaik is confident of winning the elections this time. The Janmorcha has failed to gain any strength. Moreover, the AOP is likely to play a significant role in weakening the base of the Congress to the advantage of the BJD. The AOP was formed after Soumya Ranjan Patnaik was ousted from the Congress for anti-party activities.

Another factor that makes Naveen Patnaik confident is his success in preventing the BJP from entering into an alliance with the Janmorcha or other parties. By preventing such an alliance, Patnaik has given the BJP’s national leaders a hint that his party may be available for the NDA in the post-election situation.

Naveen Patnaik, however, had to face a major challenge this time. His party was flooded with more than 50,000 applications from people seeking the party ticket, and many BJD leaders turned rebels after being denied the ticket .

The BJD, which has managed to maintain its anti-Centre stand with a view to developing a strong regional identity, may win the 2014 elections. It has kept the Biju legacy alive by floating a large number of welfare schemes over the years named after the late leader.

In the 1998 general election, the BJD’s first trial of strength, the party won nine of the 12 seats it contested, while the BJP won seven of the nine seats it fought as per the seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties.

In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, the BJD won 10 of the 12 seats it fought and the BJP all the nine it contested. In the February 2000 Assembly elections, the alliance bagged 106 of the total 147 seats, the BJD winning 68 of the 84 seats it contested and the BJP 38 of 63. In 2004, when Naveen Patnaik decided to lose one year of his term and hold the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections simultaneously, the BJD won 11 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP seven, the Congress two and the JMM one. In the Assembly elections, the BJD-BJP alliance was able to win 93 of the 147 seats: the BJD 61 and the BJP 32. In 2009, when the Assembly elections were held along with the Lok Sabha elections, the BJD had seat-sharing arrangements with other parties, and its candidates won in as many as 103 seats.

Whether Naveen Patnaik’s promise to build the Odisha of his father’s dreams will help him win yet another election will be known when the votes are counted on May 16.

Prafulla Das

Standing alone for the first time, Patnaik battles ‘Modi wave’

PRAFULLA DAS

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The HinduNaveen Patnaik. File Photo: Lingaraj Panda

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Orissa

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The infighting within BJD is affecting the party’s prospects in at least 10 Assembly constituencies

It is for the first time that Odisha Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik is fighting the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections alone. Surprisingly, he is having a tough time in coastal Odisha, one of his party’s strongholds.

As the coastal and northern regions of the State are scheduled to go to the polls on April 17, Mr. Patnaik is leaving no stone unturned by addressing a series of public meetings seeking votes for his party nominees. There was no number-2 leader in the party to share his burden, and he has engaged many Odia film stars to draw crowds at party rallies.

This is for the first time that the BJD is fighting the elections without having alliance or seat-sharing arrangement with any other party, and Mr. Patnaik having no known advisor.

Bureaucrat-turned politician Pyarimohan Mohapatra, who earlier used to manage elections for the BJD, is not with Mr. Patnaik since 2012.

Mr. Mohapatra, however, has not succeeded in strengthening the Odisha Janmorcha that he had founded after Mr. Patnaik ousted him for engineering a failed coup attempt against him almost two years ago. Mr. Patnaik and his party colleagues are happy that Mr. Mohapatra’s party had failed to cause much harm to their party’s electoral prospects.

Mr. Patnaik and his lieutenants, however, are facing an uphill task since BJP had emerged as the third major contender across the State by riding the ‘Modi wave’, even though the main opposition, Congress, had remained weak due to factionalism.

Even though the BJD alone had, in the 2009 elections, won nine of the 11 Lok Sabha constituencies and around 70 of 77 the Assembly seats going to the polls on April 17, Mr. Patnaik was also finding the going tough because of infighting in the party in many areas.

The infighting within BJD is affecting the party’s prospects in at least 10 Assembly constituencies. Many of his party’s Lok Sabha members, Ministers and sitting legislators are also facing the anti-incumbency factor.

Mr. Patnaik continues to blame the Congress-led government at the Centre for allegedly neglecting the cause of Odisha, and criticise the Bharatiya Janata Party, stressing the need to prevent the saffron party in forming government at the Centre.

Mr. Patnaik continues his assurances to fulfil his father’s dreams of building a prosperous and developed Odisha, to thinning crowds at his rallies, in a bid to gain votes for his party nominees in the State for the fourth consecutive time.

The opposition parties have already started criticising his promise as the State was carrying the ‘Most Backward’ tag even after he had ruled for 14 years. The outcome of the polls, being held amid the ‘Modi wave’ campaign, may prove the pollster wrong if voters shy away from the BJD in coastal Odisha for varied reasons.

Hunger and death

PRAFULLA DAS
in Dongiriguda

Death stalks Orissa's backward Nawrangpur district, where healthcare and food security systems are virtually absent in the Adivasi-inhabited areas.

A malnourished child at the Nawrangpur district headquarters hospital.

THE Dongiriguda Adivasi settlement, located in the reserve forest under Jharigaon block of Orissa's Nawrangpur district, may have remained unknown and out of the government's purview for many more years to come but for the death of 11 malnourished children in the 0-5 age group in the space of a few weeks in June-July. The dance of death in the tribal hamlet began when a few children were afflicted with diarrhoea, fever and acute respiratory infection. More and more children showed similar symptoms, resulting in 10 deaths between June 11 and July 22.

Jolted by media reports, government officials, who had never visited Dongiriguda before, made a beeline to the hamlet, treading the jungle path, to save their political masters much embarrassment. They shifted seven children to the community health centre (CHC) at Jharigaon, a good 28 kilometres from the hamlet. Further, they shifted three children, whose condition deteriorated at the health centre, to the district hospital. One of these children died at Nawrangpur on July 24, taking the toll to 11.

The problem of malnutrition is not confined to Dongiriguda. Children from other hamlets in the Jharigaon block are undergoing treatment at the CHC. Earlier, for the politicians in power Dongiriguda did not exist. However, State Health and Family Welfare Minister Bijayshree Routray, along with two other Ministers, visited the CHC. In order to score a few political brownie points, a team of Congress leaders led by Pradesh Congress Committee president Jayadev Jena visited Dongiriguda. On its return from the hamlet, the Congress raised the issue of malnutrition deaths in the Assembly and blamed the Biju Janata Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government for its failure to help the 82 Adivasi families of the hamlet.

At Dongiriguda hamlet, tribal families mourning the death of their children.

Dongiriguda has remained outside the purview of numerous government schemes because it is a non-revenue village or one that exists within reserve forest limits. None of the families possesses a below poverty line (BPL) card because their's is not a revenue village. They are not extended any government facility except free medicines once a month.

Consumption of unhealthy food and lack of access to health care facilities are common to the backward districts of the State. Malnutrition among children, which is widely prevalent in these districts, is the underlying cause of the high rate of infant mortality in Orissa - 97 per 1,000 live births. Nawrangpur is one of the districts with the highest infant mortality rates.

The malnutrition deaths could have been prevented had there been a working health care system. This is the case in Nawrangpur and elsewhere in the State. Two months ago, 19 children of a village in Baramba block of Cuttack district died owing to the lack of proper health care facilities. The Nawrangpur district headquarters hospital does not have a single paediatrician. The acute shortage of paramedical staff has the people turning to quacks for medical help. So it is unsurprising that death stalks Dongiriguda. (The hamlet has 37 children in the 0-5 age group.) Moreover, the mothers of these children are also in poor health. "The authorities never gave us anything. They even failed to save my child," says Chuku Jani whose son Gobinda Jani died at the Nawrangpur hospital.

DONGIRIGUDA is not accessible by road. To reach the hamlet from Nawrangpur, one must first undertake an 86-km journey to Jharigaon. From there a narrow 22-km dirt track leads to the edge of the forest. From where one must trek 6 km down the jungle path to reach Dongiriguda.

A tribal woman with her ailing children at the Jharigaon community health centre.

A female health worker is the sole link between the government and the people of Dongiriguda. She visits the hamlet once a month to distribute medicines for diseases such as diarrhoea and malaria, the two main health concerns in the region.

None of the 335 persons in the hamlet, who eke out a living by cultivating paddy and other cereals on small patches of land and work as daily wage labourers in nearby villages, has had any education. So the importance of health and hygiene has never occurred to these people.

The only sanitary well in the village, dug by the local panchayat, remains dysfunctional for most of part of the year, forcing the people to consume water from a nullah. The well was repaired only after the village became the focus of media attention.

Primary health care in the district is in poor condition. This is reflected in the State of the ill-equipped CHC at Jharigaon, which receives about 40 ailing children a day. Its roofs leaks and filth lies all over the place.

PRAFULLA DAS 

Grieving the death of their daughter.

As many as 37 posts of medical officers and 112 posts of paramedical staff are lying vacant in the district.The number of vacancies in the former case was 47 in June. Ten doctors were posted to the district in the wake of the malnutrition deaths. These doctors will remain there only for a year as they have been posted in the backward region as a precondition for admission to post-graduate courses next year.

District Collector Arabinda Kumar Padhee is trying his best to cope with the situation with the available manpower and facilities. "We are taking all possible measures to prevent further deaths of children," he said.

He blamed the parents for the deaths. "The parents go to work leaving the children with their siblings, who are not able to handle children," he said.