Witty, vivacious, bristling with vigour, vitality and enthusiasm, workaholic Er Sasmita Behera is currently the president of Odisha Mahila Congress. She opted for politics and public life since 2002 abandoning all the temptations of a lucrative career and followed the footprints of his father Bhajaman Behera, a former popular leader, to serve the people of her State.
She had her degree in Chemical Engineering from the NIT, Rourkela in 1992 and obtained an MBA degree from the Utkal University in 1996. She was fortunate for having been selected for a prestigious training in 2012 at the IIM, Bangalore under the national programme “India Women in leadership”.
She learned politics intimately from the grassroots level and was Chairman of the Talcher Panchayat Samiti in 2002. Subsequently, she was the president of Angul Zilla Parishad in 2007. She had contested for the Talcher Assembly Constituency in 2014.
Today, she is deeply pained on the issue of crimes against women in our State and terms Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s ‘zero tolerance’ to crimes against women as a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing. In an interview to The Pioneer, Sasmita spoke to Sugyan Choudhury predicting that this ugly syndrome of crimes against women in Odisha shall unmistakably prove as an albatross round the neck of Naveen paving the way for an inevitable Waterloo for the BJD in 2019 elections.
How secure are the women in Odisha todayIJ
Women today in Odisha are haunted by a sense of fear and nightmare. It is a matter of shame and sorrow that average six women are sexually abused daily in Odisha as per the data of the National Crime Record Bureau. The Chief Minister brazen-facedly has admitted it on the floor of the legislative Assembly. The police department is acting more or less like a BJD office. Very often, police officials are not registering the FIRs being hands in glove with BJD musclemen. What happened in the sensitive cases of Kunduli victim, Itishree murder and the case of BebinaIJ In all these cases, the accused are still at large and the victims and their families have been deprived of sssgetting justice.
What do you think as the factors responsible for the growing crimes against womenIJ
You see the mushrooming of liquor shops across the State is the chief reason along with the lackadaisical attitude of the law enforcing agencies. The Government argues they are getting three thousand crores revenues approximately per annum to meet over one lakh crores of annual State Budget. This argument is absurd. A drunkard family head is also responsible for poverty, malnutrition and hunger of the family. Sixty per cent of our infants and women are vulnerable to malnutrition owing to the squandering of the money by the family head in consuming liquor. In the days ahead, the Odisha Mahila Congress is committed to making Odisha a liquor-free State by launching an awareness campaign throughout the State. I shall cite an example from a recent survey conducted on six hundred prisoners. It was found that four hundred ninety-eighty prisoners are liquor addicts. Thus, liquor and crime are directly proportionate to each other. The present State Government, in my opinion, is penny-wise and pound-foolish by ignoring the dictates of the Father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi to ban this scourge from our country.
Which are the other spheres where women are unsafeIJ
The women in Odisha are unsafe everywhere. They are unsafe at schools, colleges, universities and workplaces. You know how in big institutions like Ravenshaw and Ramadevi such incidents occur routinely. In a recent case how two educated women were thrashed black and blue at the Nayapalli police station under the very nose of our CM! The sexual abuse and rape of minor girls have risen to an all-time high in our State. At this infamous scenario in the national level, Odisha is next only to New Delhi. Crimes against SC and ST women, who constitute forty per cent of the State’s population, are at staggering height! If this sorry state of affairs continues, it will spell the doom of the BJD government like Waterloo during th 2019 elections.
How do you justify one set of rules for the present Government and the other set of rules for a Congress Government when Chhabirani and Anjana cases occurred during the JB Patnaik regimeIJ
Criminals have one colour in common. Our Congress Government had to go out of power after the infamous Anjana Mishra case.. But this was the case of single Anjana and a single Chhabirani; but today, such cases do occur daily. Many Anjanas and many Chhabiranis are subjected to sexual abuse, rape and murder. Sometimes, the men in uniform are aiding and abetting this ugly scenario. The Mahila Congress is determined to fight the crimes against women.
What special status do you vouchsafe for women in our State and in the countryIJ
We demand a thirty-three-per cent of reservation for women towards proportional representation for Assembly and for Parliament. A couple of months ago, we have submitted the signatures of two lakhs of women from Odisha to the President of India demanding for the same.
There were forty lakhs of signatures of women from across the country. Modiji in his election manifesto committed for a thirty-three-percent of reservation for women, but even after four years of his rule nothing has happened. This is sheer hypocrisy on the part of the BJP supremo, who always resorts to rabblerousing rhetoric but to no avail!