Former MP, wealthy Baijayant Panda is now occupying news space quite in big measure for all the wrong reasons. He has allegedly grabbed land for his property business outfit ‘Odisha Infratech’ in Sarua mauza under the Begunia tehsil of Khordha district.
‘Jay’ Panda, as he likes to be called, identified nearly one hundred acres of land in Sarua. Unfortunately for him, there were twenty-one poor landowners from the Scheduled Caste community among others. The prevailing law does not permit general caste individuals to purchase land from these poor owners and turn them landless.
The law, however, permits ‘sale purchase’ of land between Schedule Caste individuals no matter which specific sub-caste one belongs to. ‘Jay’ obviously realised that his Odisha Infratech would not be able to acquire a contiguous patch of hundred acres unless the Scheduled Caste plots are acquired.
He used his poor Scheduled-Caste car driver Rabi Sethi to buy nearly ten acres of land from twenty-one extremely poor, marginal landowners. No one ever wondered how an ordinary driver earning at the most a 10-12 thousand-rupee-monthly salary could organise big money to buy ten acres in an area with which he had no connection of any kind. But somehow or other, the news about this leaked out and quite some public murmur began to be heard everywhere.
As the Odisha Infratech functionaries were celebrating the land acquisition, the law enforcement caught up with them and scooped away the administrative boss to custody for interrogation. Now, all hell broke loose at Jay’s end. He screamed ‘foul!’ and will keep doing so for some more time as his own OTV is a leading news channel.
Meanwhile, five of the twenty-one poor Scheduled Caste guys having been rendered landless suddenly, sensed cheating and began knocking at doors be guided rightly to lodge complaints with enforcement agencies.When the news leaked out, there was a thorough investigation into the land purchase deal by the Odisha Infratech.
The findings indicated that the seasoned former lawmaker has violated law.‘Jay’ is trying his best to trash the allegations made by the poor people now without any land to sustain life. As usual, he blames the State authorities for harassing him on purpose only to take revenge on some silly issue.
The reports in hand now make it clear that the helpless driver Rabi Sethi is heading for trouble with law as much as employees of the Odisha Infratech.
‘Jay’ has the big dough to parade lawyers for himself when entangled, but the driver and the firm’s executives may have to fend for themselves unless ‘Jay’ grows a heart of a good human being to support the hapless guys.Jay is by all means a most fortunate person who took birth in a wealthy household. His intelligent father late Dr Bansidhar Panda, an enormously successful scientist-turned-industrialist, made good wealth from a monopoly industrial venture by hard work and luck. Legendary Biju Patnaik was greatly instrumental in Dr Panda’s rise to the hugely enviable status.
Jay may have been an average student. He was sent to the Michigan Technological University, where he did his graduate as well as a communication course.
The Naveen Patnaik administration has been extremely kind and helpful to Baijayant at all times primarily because late Bansidhar Panda was always admired by Bijubabu.
‘Jay’ was sent to Rajya Sabha by Naveen and backed on all matters related to being at the top. After Pyari Mohan Mohapatra got dislodged in 2012, Naveen chose his own carefully- handpicked team of administrators to guide him in all critical governance matters. ‘Jay’ had imagined he was the wisest, brightest and best-skilled to be Naveen’s principal guide and advisor.
But supremely-intelligent Naveen by now had sniffed most of Jay’s blemishes, including his craze for ‘self-growth’. People say Jay had always believed money power was real power.
‘Jay’, for reasons best known to him, went on a spree of dismissing Naveen’s choice of energetic and superbly scrupulous bureaucrats who explained the ground realities and what methods should work to the no-nonsense master who is impatient to see the quality of life of the distressed communities improving fast.