Bhubaneswar: Continuing his attack on the governance style in Odisha, BJD vice president and Khandapada MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik on Sunday pointed an accusing finger at the functioning of the bureaucracy in the state and questioned the ‘sidelining’ of ministers in the government.
Referring to the recent arrest of Biranchi Narayan Sahu, private secretary to a member of the Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC), for allegedly possessing huge assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, Soumya, in his editorial ‘Kotipati Kiraninka Katha (Tale of a Crorepati Clerk)’ in leading Odia daily Sambad, took a dig at the State Vigilance questioning the arrests made by anti-graft agency in recent years and poor the conviction rate.
Soumya also maintained the arrest of a Class III employee on corruption charges is not enough. “One has to see whether the zero-tolerance policy of the state government is applicable to all or only to these low-rank employees. How could the OSSC private secretary get so much power and authority? When a private secretary has no power to change the decision of his higher authority, where from Biranchi got the opportunity to commit such irregularities and how come the higher authorities had no knowledge about his wrongdoings?” he wondered.
Stating that time will tell about the state government’s achievements in curbing corruption with the dismissal of Biranchi Sahu, he questioned who will give justice to the deserving candidates who were deprived of jobs due to the corruption in OSSC and who will take action against the higher officials who are responsible for the plight of these candidates.
“What we feel now that in contrast to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who is polite and humble, the bureaucrats are egoist and arrogant,” Soumya said.
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Citing an instance to justify his contention, he said while all political parties have appreciated the Chief Minister’s decision to transform Puri into a world heritage city, the people of Odisha are yet to know who had taken the decision to serve liquor in beach shacks in the pilgrim town on the pretext of promotion of tourism. “Thankfully, the decision has been withdrawn following public protests and respecting the religious sentiments of the people,” he noted.
“As a student of political science, I was taught that in a democracy, the bureaucrats function within the ambit of political accountability. But now what we see is just the reverse. The ministers, who are the people’s representatives, are not seen in any event where the major programmes of the government are announced. It seems they have sincerely accepted this trend like the standard operating procedure (SOP) issued for strict adherence to COVID protocol,” he mocked.
The Khandapada MLA had earlier stirred up a hornets’ nest in the ruling BJD over the posters of the Chief Minister at the COVID vaccination centres, the style of functioning of his party supremo and his over-dependence on the 5T secretary V K Pandian and his party MLA Pranab Prakash Das.
Also Read: Soumya Ranjan Stirs Up A Hornets’ Nest, Targets Odisha CM Over ‘Fudging’ Of COVID Deaths
