Vested interest groups seem to have combined to tarnish the image of Achyuta Samanta and, in the process, to shut his unique creation Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS).
Using the CAG reports on the Government land allotment scams, Samanta has now been virtually singled out for attack, presumably to distract the attention from so many other beneficiaries of alleged irregular allotments of lands including politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and educational and health sector institutions.
This has led to a common perception that Samanta’s critics who include the tiny rivals in the fields of his activities are all acting overtime in a campaign against him out of jealousy of his soaring national and international reputation for building up the KISS, where an incredible 22,500 tribal boys and girls get education, lodging and boarding absolutely free-of-coast, and also the older Kalinga Industrial Institute of Technology (KIIT) as a centre of quality tech education centre.
This is despite the fact that the KIIT and KISS managements have sought to clarify that the CAG report on land allotment to them has several loopholes, which are to be clarified. Samanta’s associates have alleged that the vested interests working against him and his institutes have been using a small section of the local TV media to sub-serve their purpose.
Meanwhile on Monday, as many as about 15,000 tribal KISS girls took out a silent candle march and held a protest meeting against the brutal attack on them on Sunday last. Holding placards and banners, they marched from Master Canteen Square to PMG Square demanding immediate arrest of the three staffs of two electronic media organisations involved in the attack.
They said a particular TV organisation has been running vicious defamation campaigns against the KISS for last three years. They warned that if the media organisation does not desist from such baseless defamation campaign, they would be forced to sit in dharna in front of its office.
This apart, thousands of guardians of the 22,500 KISS students would stage dharna before the respective district Collector’s office in 22 tribals-dominated districts from Wednesday and write about the injustice to the President, Prime Minister, Governor, Chief Minister, they warned.