That Excise and Cooperation Minister Damodar Rout is aggrieved over the way Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik runs the Government and the party giving him scant importance was once again evident from a statement he even made at a virtual Government function on Sunday.
He too apparently had a dig at the manner of the running of the Government when he said that he being a Cabinet Minister is not even consulted on the matters relating to his departments. “I am a Khatagada (garbage dump meaning a rejected one in the Government),” he remarked at the meeting organised by the Odisha State Cooperative Union on the occasion of the 63rd All India Cooperation Week.
Dr Rout lamented that though he heads the Department of Cooperation, he is not informed about how procurement of paddy is being handled though cooperative bodies.
Significantly, Rout’s younger Ministerial colleague with the portfolio of Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Sanjay Dasburma, who takes decisions on paddy procurement, was also present at the function.
Seventy-five-year-old Rout has over the past many months has been venting his anger in public for being ignored in the Government and the party and for the importance given to younger elements obviously by Naveen Patnaik.