Amidst hurling of tomatoes, stiff protest and arrest drama, the much-awaited RathYatra review meeting ended in Puri with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik taking stock of the preparedness ahead of the world famous festival on July 14.
Despite water-tight security all through his ways, some unidentified persons hurled tomato at the cavalcade of the CM near Chakratirtha Road and fled away.
Hours before his visit, the police had taken more than two dozens of Congress and lulu Sena supporters into custody, fearing any possible chaos to the CM.
Opposing inactions and studied silence over a slew of issues like the missing keys, false allegations against servitors, besides recent court observations, the Congress workers staged protests at different locations wearing black badges.
Patnaik reached the Gopabandhu Ayurveda Medical College and Hospital auditorium late after 11.30 and in less than 40 minutes, he left the hall. Despite the earlier boycott call to CM’s meeting, surprisingly, no one upped an ante and all most all representatives and heads of Nijogs were found present. They did not put a single question to the CM and sat silently like onlookers.
At the end, they handed over a memorandum to the CM with their various demands.
The district police made elaborate security arrangements by deploying forces at every square to ensure that the entry and exit of the CM is incident-free.
It appeared that the review meeting was literally no less than an eyewash as the CM silently heard a long report card pronounced by an officer over completion of all arrangements and preparations by chain departments under Puri district administrations for the Rath Yatra. No discussion was made as if only listing was the duty of the invitees and delegates present in the hall. Though most whispered about true pictures of completions of amenities in the city, but no one opened mouth. Initially, the CM inaugurated ‘Ruparekha’, a booklet published by the Government over the Car festival. The book contains information and guidelines on the Rath Yatra.
Among others, Puri MP Pinaki Misra, Revenue Minister Maheswar Mohanty, I and PR Minister Pratap Jena, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, DGP RP Sharma, RDC DV Swamy, I and PR Secretary Hemant Sharma, Culture Secretary Manoranjan Panigrahi, Puri Collector Aravind Agarwal, SP Sarthak Sarangi and Puri Municipality Chairman Jayant Kumar Sarangi were present at the meeting, which was last ahead of the Car Festival.
26 minor girls were rescued by the GRP and RPF from the Muzaffarpur-Bandra Awadh Express after a tweet from a passenger alerted them to the situation. On July 5, a passenger on board the train tweeted that he was travelling in the S5 coach of the train and noticed the girls crying and looking uncomfortable. Reacting to the tweet, officials in Varanasi as well as lucknow swung into action and within half an hour of the alert on social media site started investigating the matter.