Certainly not out of sync with time, a certain members of the political class in Odisha have, through their brazenly shameless acts, unravelled the bitter truth that criminal links are launch pads to thrive in politics.
Though in Odisha the crime-politics mix is not something new, but the recent cocktail is too hard and has forced the peace-loving people of the State into some out-of-the-box thinking.
Gone is the time when MlAs/MPs lived simple and thought high and were flanked by followers for ideology-oriented and pro-people politics.
Today’s leaders are known for their fleet of costly cars, gaudy apparels, swanky houses and other material possessions. They are now in a zone psychologically barricaded off grassroots people.
While chit fund, mining, land, coal and food card scams have taken the torchlight to cunningly covert links of people in the corridor of power with the kingpins, it has been quite shocking to find that not just the ruling party men, but leaders irrespective of party line subsume in the same clan. Similarly not just the young, ambitious leaders, but the old and seasoned ones at the cost of their avowed ideology are in the race for unethical and unscrupulous gains.
So if fairly seniors like Pravat Tripathy and Ramchandra Hansda are implicated and jailed for taking pecuniary benefits from chit fund scoundrels, it does not look out of place when young brigade Sanjay Dasburma is alleged to have grabbed a Pajero SUV from a fraudster.
Meanwhile, grand old man Damaodar Rout’s legs are being pulled in to the sop controversy by the Ponzi masterminds. The interesting point is none but politicians have emerged to be the proverbial nail for extracting a nail.
The spectacle of a humiliating fall and unsung demise of once very powerful BJD strongman Kalpataru Das for availing flats/plots by bending laws and of his MlA son for the same irregularities set a trend of ‘wanton gluttons’ in politics for whom pursuing unbridled self growth serves the be-all and end-all. land scam also brought into limelight a few other leaders, including a former Chief Minister’s son and Minister Bijayashree Routray. However, Routray rubbished it to be a scam and said that the house built there was dedicated for a philanthropic purpose by his doctor-wife.
Though it is a different matter if the accused were convicted for charges but their multifarious links give a tell-tale sign of how they let miscreants flourish under their patronage and it suffices to sully their images in public eyes instantly.
The chit fund firms could not have committed a fraud of such an astounding proportion by just backing of a few political leaders, if the Government had not supported them. Starting from the Chief Minister to the who’s who in his Cabinet, they promoted the chit firms by attending their functions. The Government also blindly inked pacts for projects worth crores of rupees by entitling them to huge concessions and sops. And, when the real face of the firms like Seashore or AT came to the fore, the Government cancelled its agreements in a hurry to save its face. Nevertheless, by that time these thugs had duped the poor and gullible investors of the State of hundreds of crores of rupees.
Two recent cases of extremely serious nature, pontificating unabashed stooping in politics are the episodes of the Dhalsamant brothers and former Congress MlA Ramesh Jena. Virtually every day new skeletons tumble out of the cupboard concerning the two incidents. In the one case, the crime czars of Cuttack, who happen to be siblings, had covered a full circles by committing all kinds of crimes from loot, murder, ransom, tender fixing to smuggling and arms trading. And, as if children feeding on gripe water, most influential leaders of several parties including BJD, BJP and Congress, enjoyed proximity with the brother duo, to come up with excuses of their very ignorance about the duo’s crime background when the unholy nexus went for a hype.
In the second case, no sponsorship, rather it is direct involvement of a former Congress MlA in several crimes jolts the expectation of high standards of ethics and morality from public representatives.
To conclude, one hopes that Odisha political firmament gets shorn of the tainted minority sooner than later.