While the BJP and BJD loudmouths are squabbling over who should steal the credit for the Paradip Refinery, it is public knowledge that the Congress-led Government had first conceptualised a six-million-tonne project way back during Narasimha Rao’s Premiership. Believably, the successive NDA Government at the Centre and the BJD-BJP Government in Odisha did not want the enviable project to come up obviously for mean political reasons. Captain Satish Sharma was the Petroleum Minister then.
During Janaki Ballabh Patnaik’s rule, the IOCl had released funds for land acquisition and the State Government had readily organised acquisition of 3,345 acres of land at Paradip.
What many Odias may have forgotten is that the Nalco, the biggest aluminum plant of Asia, was conceptualised by visionary Biju Patnaik when he was Janata Party Minister in Morarji Desai’s Cabinet between 1977 and 1980. He chose the best bauxite treatment technology from Pechiney of France, now called Rio Tinto-Alcan, because that would make aluminum at the lowest cost. Hence, the Nalco is today one of the highest profit-making companies in the public sector. Interestingly, when the Nalco was inaugurated in 1984 by the Congress Government with JB Patnaik leading Odisha, Bijubabu sat coolly without any fuss or tantrum about the being the ‘hero’. The whole knowing world did fathom the magnanimity of Biju Patnaik, who never once said he was the brain behind the Nalco and that he chose the best available technology.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation-stone in 2000, but in 2002 Petroleum boss Ram Naik, in reply to a query by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, had said that due to lack of economic viability, the Paradip Refinery Project was to be shelved. Soon later, Vajpayee laid foundation-stone for a big refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh. Fortunately again, during UPA-I in 2006, the Paradip project was accorded top priority and a Cabinet decision was taken to establish a 15-MT refinery at a cost of Rs 35,554 crore there. And we witness the biggest project in place today.
The NISER project too was decided by the UPA Government led by Manmohan Singh. Modi is only lucky to be the PM around the time the project got ready. Odisha kid Dharmendra Pradhan representing Bihar is madly basking in a false glory that he as petroleum boss had sleepless nights and foodless days preparing the dedication of the huge plant to the nation. Dharmendra is a good guy but seems to be a bit immature in conducting himself publicly when it comes to credit sharing and being humble. He must know too well that late Pramod Mahajan of BJP talked too much and posed too big by having all the BJP events in super class 5-star hotels while professing austerity and simple living only by the tongue. He planned the ‘India Shining’ campaign on a highly wealthy corporate mode and the people lost faith in the party and conclusively dismissed it. Dharmendra did precious little in cautioning about the counterproductive outcomes of his artificial-smile photo dumped everywhere. It was publicity overload and looked like roadside garbage. He must kick out the campaign designer for good. More importantly, he ignored the local MlA by never having him to speak a word in his own territory. Further, he simply did not bother to put the IOCl Chairman D Ashok in front and speak a few words. It was messed up as a party publicity campaign rather than a state event, which is ethically wrong.
q The other big sensation news is about the Dhalsamant brothers who have manned the State crime door for long without being noticed as mafia-linked criminals. Sushant Dhalsamant, 45, and Sushil, 42, are believed to have links with Mumbai and Kolkata mafia only to expand their base in Odisha by using fear as key. The huge cache of arms seized from their CDA house at Sector-6 and the rented Vizag house indicates they have always been into methodically planned crime on big scale. Police have already seized a diary with names, addresses and telephone numbers of influential politicians and dreaded criminals. Recently-taken photographs of politicians amid the gangsters at private events are already viral in both general and social media.
Dharmendra Pradhan had attended a blood donation camp organised by the mafia brothers. He says, “Until the gangster brothers are convicted by law courts, they cannot be called criminal.” Congress leaders Bhakta Charan Das and lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, BJD MlAs Debasis Samantray and Rajashree Mullick and BJP leader and former Minister Samir Dey are also believed to be pally-pally with the gangsters engaged in tender fixing, extortion and illicit inter-State arms dealing. Four mousers with 127 live bullets, a carbine, a double-barrelled gun along with 22 bullets and more than Rs 2.64 crore in cash, apart from a cash-counting machine, have been recovered from their Cuttack house at Sector-6 in Bidanasi, where many judges have set up homes by furnishing ‘homelessness’ affidavits with the urban department.
Police sources say the Dhalsamant brothers operated a huge crime syndicate with assistance from deadly criminals and mafias operating across the country. They received funds through the hawala racket for running crime syndicates across the coastal belt of Odisha, mostly through tender-fixing and extortion activities. Two close associates of the gangster brothers, who are now absconding, operated the entire crime syndicate.
The cops’ focus is now on ascertaining the criminal links of Sushant, the elder sibling who was on the run for the past 14 years, hopping from cities in Andhra Pradesh to Kolkata and Mumbai. Sushant travelled under the name of Manoj Patnaik as revealed from the driving licence used by him. Three murder cases are registered against Sushant; another eleven for tender-fixing and extortion, are lodged against the younger brother Sushil. The big wonder is how they never came under special police surveillance all these years despite a number of grave allegations against them.
Preliminary investigation reveals that Sushil was keen to become a popular politician to shed the gangster tag by setting up a company called Metaphor Trans Corporation Pvt ltd and a media house two years ago, maybe to convert the big black money into white. He had also cunningly founded the Cuttack Nagar Yuvak Sangha to portray a messiah image by organising some stray welfare activities once in a while but publicising it massively to entice voter-greedy politicians from alal parties. Cuttack Barabati MlA Debasis Samantaray denies any personal link with these alleged history-sheeters, like all other politicians.
q The Odisha BJP community is losing ground fast. The self-styled spokespersons talk too much and mostly garbage and crap. Instead of concentrating on party solidarity, they keep harping on what the BJD is not doing. Basant Panda, the new State president, a vastly unknown man, screams that Naveen must be held responsible for the crimes of the Dhalsamant brothers, rather than holding Samir Dey responsible for degrading the party. In a TV interview, Tathagata Satpathy, the BJD MP from Dhenkanal, kept expressing ignorance about any Central Government Minister from his constituency. He kept saying emphatically that he knew Jual Oram as a Union Minister from Odisha. When asked about Dharmendra Pradhan, he said sadly that Pradhan is from Bihar, not from Odisha. Satpathy seems to be right. Dharmendra is an MP on a compassionate Rajya Sabha ticket from Bihar. He does not have a vote bank constituency in Odisha. When some BJP sycophants keep singing Pradhan’s praise to project him as the next Chief Minister of Odisha, people look up in distrust. A ‘stranger’ State president and bad strategic moves have done BJP considerable damage. Dharmendra has to identify a constituency first and make it real robust before dreaming of Chief Ministership.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)