Bhubaneswar: Some recent developments indicate that there is a conspiracy to defame Odisha’s first BJP chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi who is a santhal tribal like president Draupadi Murmu.
Majhi, who is a four-time MLA from Keonjhar, faced tremendous embarrassment when the sports department recently announced that Biju Patnaik sports award was being renamed as Rajya Kreeda Award. The implication was that the new government was keen to change the names of all the schemes and awards named by the Naveen Patnaik government.
As soon as this announcement was made there was an uproar with many objecting to the change of name as Biju Patnaik is no ordinary politician but a freedom fighter who is respected by leaders across the political spectrum. The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) also criticized the government.
The government was quick to retract with the chief minister himself clarifying that there had been no decision to change the name of the award and that his government respected leaders like Biju Patnaik. Embarrassingly enough the chief minister admitted that he came to know about the name change controversy from the newspapers.
Sources said there was a deep rooted controversy to defame the new chief minister who lacks administrative experience. The development showed lack of coordination between departments, especially between the department of sports and the chief minister’s office. The question being asked is how was the decision to rename the award taken without taking the chief minister and his office into confidence.
A day before the first session of the 17th Odisha assembly began chief minister Mohan Majhi alongwith deputy chief minister KV Singh Deo went to Naveen Nivas, the official residence of leader of opposition Naveen Patnaik to invite him to the all-party meeting called by assembly speaker Surama Padhi. This was both surprising and unprecedented. Patnaik did not turn up at the meeting despite being extended a personal invitation by Majhi. Instead he sent one of his party MLAs to the meeting.
POlitical analysts have interpreted this as a snub to chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi who could have very well avoided this kind of embarrassment with sane advice from his colleagues. There was absolutely no need for him to visit Naveen Nivas which showed that he was being extra courteous towards the former chief minister.
Political circles are agog with rumours that Majhi deliberately advised some of his party colleagues to visit Naveen Nivas and extend a personal invitation to Patnaik which would show the former in bad light. The embarrassment was acute for Majhi when Patnaik did not turn up at the meeting. Instead on the opening day of the assembly session Patnaik appeared in the House in the battle gear and launched a blistering attack on the government for not initiating any action against governor Raghubar Das’s son for allegedly misbehaving with and assaulting an employee of the Raj Bhavan at Puri on the Rath Yatra day. All this indicates that there is a conspiracy to defame Majhi.
