While Sundargarh MP and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram is busy organising the first National Tribal Carnival in New Delhi, the Bhuyan tribal community of Sundargarh and its adjacent districts held a rally here demanding his expulsion from the Union Cabinet.
A huge number of Bhuyan tribals congregated and took out a procession with slogans like “Jual Oram murdabad”, “Jual Oram tume istafa dia” and Bhuyan ekta zindabad” to the Collector’s office and submitted a memorandum in favour of the President and the Prime Minister urging them to sack Oram from the Union Cabinet for his alleged anti-tribal remark vis-à-vis the Bhuyan community.
It may be noted that apparently targeting the then Sundargarh MP Hemananda Biswal, Sundargarh MlA Jogesh Singh, Talsara MlA Dr Prafulla Majhi, BJD leader Sanjib Pratap Singh Deo and Sunil Singhdeo of Hemgiri, Oram had stated that Bhuyan community does not belong to the ST category. Even he had lodged a complaint with the National ST the Commission on February 21, 2012 to look into his standpoint.
Though commission had received the complaint, it didn’t taken an action. But when Oram became the Union Minister in 2014, the commission forwarded the complaint to the Sundargarh Collector.
Angry at this, thousands of people belonging to the community came from Sundargarh, Jharsuguda and Sambalpur on September 11 to take further course of action against Oram.
Notably, the Bhuyan community has a vote bank with 3 lakh voters in Sundargarh only.
Annoyed at the congregation, Oram briefed to Press on September 11 in a hurry at Rourkela and said at no point of time he had said that Bhuyans are not STs. Rather he had said that Khandayat Bhuyans are not STs. While to sell their property, they produce certificates of Khandayat, but to take political and other benefits they produce fake ST certificates. That is why he demanded to inquiry to the matter to save the interest of actual tribals. He also stated that he had included the names of Hemananda Biswal and Prafulla Majhi mistakenly.
But the Wednesday rally proved that explanation had no impact on the Bhuyan community. If this issue is not resolved soon, it would not only trouble Oram, but also cause loss for the BJP in coming panchayat elections in Sundaragrh, Keonjhar, Jharsuguda, Deogarh and Sampalpur districts, opine political analysts.