Mo Dal Stages Protest Before Odisha Assembly, Asks Ministers & MLAs To Go Home

Bhubaneswar: Even as Odisha’s first woman speaker of Odisha Legislative Assembly Pramila Mallik awaited a tumultuous monsoon session with the BJP and Congress gearing up to corner the ruling BJD over alleged bureaucratic overreach, rising cost of living and unemployment, members of Mo Dal on Friday staged protest in front of the Odisha Assembly over alleged misgovernance in the state.

Alleging an increase in stranglehold of bureaucracy over functioning of the government, they staged a sit-in protest, raised slogans against 5T Secretary VK Pandian and were intercepted by police while attempting to barge into the Odisha Assembly premises.

The Mo Dal members questioned the need for having an Assembly session with MLAs in attendance while all decisions are taken by a secretary-level officer while touring different districts of the state. “VK Pandian has been holding meetings and announcing packages for the people of the state. He should run the Assembly and theMinisters and MLAs, who have been erecting tents and carrying people to his meetings, should return home. We are staging a peaceful protest to sent out this message,” working secretary of Mo Dal Akshay Kumar told the media.

He added that people will give a befitting reply to the government in 2024 elections as it has done nothing significant for the farmers.

This monsoon session with eight working days will have four official business days while one day has been reserved for private members’ bills and resolutions. Though the government has not shared official business on agenda, except placing of the supplementary budget on the first day of the session, BJD is expected to highlight Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s efforts to get Women’s Reservation Bill passed in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha by reaching out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers of other states while his party MPs kept pushing for it in Parliament debates.

The House will condole the death of former speaker Surjya Narayan Patro and others before adjourning for the afternoon session, when the supplementary budget will be placed.

The Appropriation Bill on the supplementary budget will be placed in the House on October 3. The House will be in session till October 4, sources said.