Bhubaneswar (Central) BJD MlA Bijay Kumar (Badal) Mohanty has profusely congratulated Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for the State Government’s decision to provide lands to the landless slum dwellers in the urban areas. He described the move as a historic one that would benefit lakhs and lakhs of poor people.
In fact, Mohanty seems to be the happiest politician because of this decision as he has started his public life as a leader of residents of the slums of the State capital city striving for their welfare. The Bhubaneswar (Central) Assembly constituency, which he has been representing as a two-time MlA since 2009, alone has about 1.5 lakh slum dwellers, who constitute majority of his 2.5-lakh electorate.
As political observers point out, the slum residents of the constituency are the backbone of Mohanty’s thumping victory in the last elections since most of the affluent sections of the electorate including Government employees in the area do not come out for voting.
Soon after the Chief Minister announced the measures for the benefit of slum dwellers after the State Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, large numbers of these residents met Mohanty and urged him to convey their gratefulness to the Chief Minister for the move to provide them homestead lands for their own.
The slum dwellers also said that the Government should revise the officially-assessed number of these residents as they far outnumber this figure of 6 lakh.