Politics

The once spotless kurta now has mud all over it. Naveen Patnaik, Orissa’s very own Mr Clean, has been battling corruption charges against his government on several fronts since the beginning of his third term as the CM. And it seems he will be spending the better part his remaining term fending off allegations of corruption. Though there were allegations of corruption against his government in the previous two terms as well, Naveen managed to retain his squeaky clean image till the last elections through a combination of deft PR and prompt action against ministers and officials facing corruption charges.

Vigilance raids on petty officials virtually on a daily basis helped perpetuate the veneer of honesty and probity that he had so carefully cultivated.

But all that changed in the very first session of the new assembly in July 2009. The BJP, Naveen’s alliance partner till a month before the election, levelled serious and credible charges of massive corruption against his government for facilitating the systematic loot of precious mineral resources (primarily iron ore) by mining companies.

A petition filed in the Supreme Court by Jana Sammilani, a people’s organisation, put the amount of iron ore illegally mined and transported out since 2000– the year Naveen became Chief Minister– at Rs7000 crore. Even as the judgment in the SC case is awaited, the Orissa High Court has concluded the hearing on a petition asking for a CBI probe into the mining scam and would soon pass a verdict.

From then on, skeletons have started tumbling out of Naveen Patnaik’s cupboard with alarming frequency. His government suffered the biggest blow to its credibility when the SC recently ordered a CBI inquiry into the large scale bungling in the implementation of the MNREGA in the state.

The court upheld the plea of the Delhi-based Center for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) which had found, in a survey of the scheme in 10 of the poorest districts in the state in 2006, that an amount of nearly Rs. 500 crore (out of a total spend of roughly Rs. 750 crore) had been swindled by politicians and officials. A series of petitions and PILs asking for a CBI probe in corruption scandals are currently pending in the Orissa high court. There is the dal (lentil) scam which has already cost Pramila Mallick, the former women and child welfare minister, her job.

Even the state vigilance department probing the allegations has found that enormous amounts of money have been siphoned off in buying rotten, inedible dal costing no more than Rs. 20 to 30 in the mid day meal (MDM) scheme while the rules prescribe purchase of arhar dal at Rs. 75 a kg.

Then there is the coal scam in which two ministers of the Naveen government – higher education minister Badri Narayan Patra and school and mass education minister Pratap Jena – have been directly implicated. The scam involved selling off heavily subsidised coal meant for small industries in the open market by issuing the quota to fictitious firms. There have been other setbacks as well. Last year, the ministry of environment and forests refused permission to mining major Vedanta to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills in Kalahandi district. Hardly had the government recovered from the shock when the Orissa High Court set aside the allotment of nearly 6,000 acres of prime land on the Puri-Konark marine drive by the government to the Anil Agarwal Foundation, earlier known as Vedanta Foundation, for setting up a ‘world class’ university, citing serious procedural lapses.

The unkindest cut came in the form of annulment of the government’s allocation of the Khandadhar iron ore mines to Posco ignoring the claims of companies, including some PSUs, which had applied for the same mines long before the Korean steel major. While none of these rulings proved corruption, the implications were obvious. But nothing has sullied the image of Naveen Patnaik more than the allegation of horse trading during the Rajya Sabha elections last year. An audio tape played by a local television channel has implicated energy minister Atanu Sabyasachi and labour minister Pushpendra Singhdeo in buying off Congress MLA from Lanjigarh, Sivaji Majhi to abstain from voting. Naveen has clearly realised that he has reached the limits of sacking ministers in an effort to prevent the arrows from coming in his direction. Political observers believe that he is helpless as all the tainted ministers in his cabinet are backed and protected by the man who is widely perceived as the power behind the throne – Rajya Sabha MP Pyari Mohan Mohapatra.In barely two years, Naveen has managed to transform public perception about him as the cleanest politician in the state to one who is presiding over ‘the most corrupt government in the history of Orissa’.

(The views expressed in the article are personal)