Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been repeatedly proving that he is afraid of facing the situation in the Posco steel project himself and that he has entrusted the task of carrying out the project to the Jagatsinghpur district administration.
While Patnaik has refrained from visiting the project site area ever since his Government’s signing of an agreement with Posco eight years ago, he was totally silent on the project in his speech at a public meeting at Balikuda, some kilometers from the project area, during his visit to the district on Thursday.
The Chief Minister, seems to be avoiding any trouble for him in view of the still continuing agitation against the mega project by a substantial section of local villagers.
And Patnaik’s silence on the project especially surprised and confused hundreds of pro-project villagers from Dhinkia who had also come to his meeting and expected that he would speak a few words about the project.
The villagers of Dhinkia, which still remains the bastion of the anti-project brigade, were led by their panchayat samiti member Tilottama Parida and they waved banners and shouted slogans demanding resumption of the stalled land acquisition process for the project and expressing their willingness to hand over their lands for the project.
However, Patnaik maintained a studied silence as if he was unaware about the project proposed to be set up not far from his meeting venue. This was despite the fact that Balikuda BJD MlA Prashanta Muduli was seen whispering something into the chief minister’s ears on the dais.
Asked about it later, Muduli admitted that he indeed had urged the chief minister to speak a few words about the Posco project. “But he (Patnaik) said while there is no doubt that the project would be implemented successfully, it would not be proper to speak in public about it,” Muduli said.
Muduli and Jagatsinghpur BJD MlA Bishnu Das, however in their speeches, said all the hurdles in the way of the project have now been removed and the land acquisition process would be completed in the next one month.
The chief minister, as usual, reiterated his tirade against the UPA Government at the Centre for its alleged raw deal to the State in the matters of railway budget, mineral royalty and special category status. He also repeated the BJD’s stand that the party would intensify its protests against the Centre’s “step-motherly treatment” towards the State.