Battered by opposition parties for his prolonged silence over the construction of barrages on the Mahanadi in Chhattisgarh even though the issue had been raised in the State Assembly several years back, a defensive Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his BJD are now trying to be offensive to gain political mileage over the issue through media hypes.
Patnaik first invited so-called opinions from political parties and other organisations even without sharing official information about the status of the Mahanadi water usage by Odisha vis-a-vis Chhattisgarh in public domain.
The Chief Minister then orchestrated a big public show by the BJD on Friday while leaving for New Delhi to attend a tripartite meeting between him, his Chhattisgarh counterpart Raman Singh and Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti on Saturday.
An estimated 15,000 BJD workers were gathered near the Bhubaneswar airport to “wish” Patnaik success at the Delhi meeting. Ruling party leaders were given the task to organise the mammoth show to send a message that the Chief Minister is seriously fighting for the cause of Odisha to what he has said his “last breath”.
Patnaik while responding to mediapersons before leaving for Delhi vowed to fight for the rights of the people at the tripartite meeting. “I assure each one of you I will put my best efforts forward and leave no stone unturned in the fight for the people of our State,” said he.
“I am going with a lot of hope that the Centre will listen to the voice of Odisha and do justice to the people of our State on the sensitive Mahanadi issue,” he said, adding that his Government had already registered protest against neighbouring Chhattisgarh’s act of constructing projects on the upstream of the Mahanadi.
The Chief Minister, who met the members from the public and political parties for last three days, thanked those who came forward with suggestions.
Earlier in the day, Patnaik continued to listen to people for the third consecutive day over the Mahanadi water dispute and met representatives of as many as 28 organisations.
Besides Patnaik, Chief Secretary Padhi and Water Resource secretary PK Jena would attend the meeting in Delhi.
Meanwhile, Patnaik has convened a meeting of his BJD MPs in Delhi on Saturday morning for a final talk before the tripartite meeting fixed at 12 noon. The Centre had convened a joint meeting in New Delhi on July 29 which was attended by Chief Secretaries of both Odisha and Chhattisgarh, but it failed to resolve the dispute. later, Uma Bharti convened a meeting between the two Chief Ministers on September 17.