Biju Janata Dal Beat The Odds of 2021 With Some Hiccups Yet Proved, Naveen Is Next To None     

By D N Singh

The year 2021 has remained as one of the most challenging in recent history not only for Odisha but for the entire country due to the pandemic. Nearly two years have been consumed by the disease forcing in a fear that is still continuing with the scary transitions.

When concerns over the pandemic had its priorities, understandably every wing of the administration rode over political issues to ensure a climate of wellbeing for the people.

Naveen Topped The List In India

However, all through the battle against the virus Odisha has remained in the lead as regards gearing up against it through steps those were pioneering. Be it lockdowns and other such measures against Covid, the state government has demonstrated a proactive stance throughout.

Suffered In Pace 

Governance obviously suffered a low, in pace, as a lot of energy had to be invested to keep the spread of the pandemic under some control and the results in Odisha proved to be more encouraging  than in many other states of the country.

In the climate of fear, politics took the back seat and whatever surfaced to become contentious, lost their edge under an impact of civility which the chief minister never lost sight of, even at trying times of the pandemic.

Tiding Over Political Charges

However,  the chatter in the political grapevine went a notch higher when the tragic incident of the death of an assistant Conservator of Forest, Soumya Ranjan Mohapatra this year. But Naveen handed over the case to the State Crime Branch; a probe by the latter could close the case within the stipulated time.

Then the killing in Klahandi  district took the center stage and a minister from the Odisha cabinet was mired in the whole thing, which ultimately subsided when the real culprit surfaced. Although the vestiges of the incident still keep blinking, the probe by the investigating agency has yet again upheld the Chief Minister’s buzz that,‘ law must take its own course.

But the opposition has not given up, showing less plausible  reasons to be content with the probe. So the cries of the protest from the opposition camp, over security for women in Odisha, still seems smoldering.

Yet the chief minister has not stopped at that and through some break-the- new- ground initiative, has sharpened the edge of the laws aimed at protecting the safety of women in Odisha.

With the slogan like ‘Maa Ku Samman’ the chief minister has initiated the basic thrust and that is making them self reliant. Either  through the Self-Help-groups or certain community efforts to breathe the air of self-reliance, the government has pushed agendas and it pays on the ground

Meanwhile, the main opposition, the BJP, took a pot-shot at the BJD on the women security issue describing the failures at protecting women as very dystopian in essence.

Simultaneously, politics  appeared riveting for a while when the issue over the corruption by a forest officer Abhay Pathak and his son Akash Pathak propped up from the hibernation of filth in which a former minister of the BJD and a sitting MLA Pradeep Panigarhi was found embroiled in the rot.

The chief minister, adhering to an overriding obligation to ensure that his government’s image is unwaveringly protected, he expelled the legislator Panigrahi from the party and now, along with the Pathaks, he now cools his heels in jail.

Acceptance Remained Intact

The year witnessed three by-polls in the year when Covid was worrisome with its menace. But the BJD won all the three and added another feather by wresting the Balasore seat from the BJP. Which was no mere feat reflecting the unflinching loyalty of people towards the chief minister.