Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi Monday, alongside together with his 10 Cupboard ministers and senior officers, held a grievance cell listening to assembly in politically important Sambalpur, because the administration claimed it was the primary assembly outdoors Bhubaneswar.
In accordance with officers, Majhi heard grievances of round 2,400 folks and obtained a number of petitions throughout the one-day session on the workplace of the Sambalpur Municipal Company. He additionally accepted grants of Rs 19.50 lakh from the CM’s aid fund for 18 folks affected by vital ailments.
Majhi’s determination to maneuver the assembly to Sambalpur stemmed from incontrovertible fact that the BJP considers western Odisha, with 5 Lok Sabha seats and at the very least 38 Meeting seats, as its stronghold in comparison with the coastal belt.
This additionally comes at a time when voices of a separate statehood within the western area are rising louder. Final month, senior BJP chief and Sambalpur MLA Jayanarayan Mishra referred to as the merger of Odisha’s western Kosal area with the remainder of the state a “historic blunder”, with the Opposition BJD alleging that the ruling get together was attempting to “divide the state”.
At a authorities perform, Mishra, a five-time MLA, alleged that the Kosal area has been uncared for for years. “We now have been exploited in each sphere… mining, agriculture, forest and repair. We now have been denied our cultural rights,” Mishra had stated.
Describing his authorities a “Lokanka Sarkar” (folks’s authorities), which is delicate to folks’s points, Majhi additionally took a dig at former CM Naveen Patnaik for “not listening to folks’s grievances”. “There have been situations previously when folks going through varied points have been attempting to satisfy the chief minister and different ministers however they may not. After our authorities got here to energy, we’re delicate in direction of peoples’ points and attempting to resolve these,” stated Majhi.
He claimed that 88% of the 9,377 grievance petitions obtained by the CM’s grievance cell have been addressed over the previous 10 months.
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Throughout his 24-year stint on the helm, Patnaik visited the CM’s grievance cell for under 76 days and by no means held any grievance assembly after August 16, 2008.
A senior authorities official stated it was a “strategic transfer” to carry a gathering in a area the place folks have felt “alienated” for years due to authorities apathy. “The chief minister, with the transfer, not simply tried to bridge the hole between the state capital and Sambalpur, which is 300 km away, but additionally despatched a powerful message that the BJP authorities cares for all areas equally,” stated a senior authorities official.
With folks from 10 western Odisha districts attending the assembly, the message will resonate throughout the area loud and clear, the official stated.
Senior Cupboard Minister Rabi Narayan Naik, additionally from the western area, stated the initiative will ease folks’s problem of travelling to Bhubaneswar to submit their grievances to the CM. Related grievance listening to conferences can be carried out in all areas in future, the CM stated.
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Historically often known as a Congress stronghold, Odisha’s Western area has all the time remained distinguished with successive governments selecting ministers from the area.
To develop its presence and fight BJP’s rising dominance within the area, former CM Patnaik, for the primary time within the 2019 Meeting polls, contested from Bijepur Meeting section within the area’s Bargarh district. Nevertheless he didn’t go away his bastion of Hinjili in Ganjam district. After successful each the seats, he vacated Bijepur.
An identical technique was adopted in 2024. Patnaik fought from Kantabanji in Balangir district to counter BJP’s surge within the area however he misplaced.
After coming to energy, the BJP saved its thrust on the area by selecting Patnagarh MLA Ok V Singh Deo as one of many two deputy CMs and in addition three Cupboard ministers from this area. Regardless that BJP received 20 of the state’s 21 Lok Sabha seats, solely Sundargarh MP Jual Oram and Sambalpur MP Dharmendra Pradhan have been inducted into the Cupboard within the Narendra Modi authorities.