Shibu fires odia blood!

 

 

'Guruji’ Shibu Soren may have saved the UPA and thus is demanding all his pounds of flesh, but one demand has put the blood of Odia on the boil. He wants three districts of Orissa merged into Jharkhand, no less. Thus, Baijayant Panda, senior Biju Janata Dal leader and leader of BJD parliamentary party in Rajya Sabha says he is not bothered what prompted Soren to say this, the Oriyas will fight this demand tooth and nail till it is withdrawn.

When news broke about Soren’s demand for inclusion of Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Sundargarh districts in Greater Jharkhand, spontaneous anger gushed out across the state. Leaders crossing party lines condemned his ‘political opportunism’. Not just politicians but cultural organisations like the Utkal Sammilani and Neelachakra also came foreword to launch a state-wide agitation. Even the docile chief minister Naveen Patnayak took a hard line. He immediately reacted: "If UPA accepts the demand, it would be construed that the Centre is anti-Orissa. We reassert our demand for the merger of Sareikala and Kharsuan, the two Oriya-dominated areas of Jharkhand with Orissa.” A Neelachakra communiqué says, "This is really not acceptable to any Odia on earth. First of all, Orissa’s demand for merger of Sareikala and Kharsuan, the two areas originally belonging to Orissa, have been ignored, so how can the UPA government listen to such baseless demands only for a Trust Vote?” However, senior state Congress leader Narasingha Mishra dismissed the reported demand and clarified, “Nobody should take it seriously, it is a dead issue.”

The first protest rally was staged in capital Bhubaneswar by Biju Janata Dal, but later it spread overnight to all areas. Mayurbhanj bandh (shutdown) was declared by Bharatiya Janata Party, and received unexpected support. Baripada district remained shut down. People came down to the streets and burnt effigies of Soren and Mayurbhanj MP, Sudam Marandi, in Baripada and also in rural areas. The joint bandh call by ruling the BJD-BJP combine received a good response in Keonjhar district. In places bordering Jharkhand, vehicular movement came to a standstill, and educational institutions, banks and commercial establishment remained closed, clearly revealing a mass protest against the demand. And the accepted wisdom now is, this is an opportunity for Odias to unite and fight for the unity and pride of their state as never before.