In a rare show of patriotism, people in the State capital observed the Diwali in a different way this time.
While lighting the lamps to pay homage to their forefathers, people did not forget to also offer a Diya in memory of the Indian soldiers who laid down their lives for the nation.
“We dedicated a Diya in honour of the martyrs,” said Shyam Sunder Das, a resident of Nayapalli here.
This was not all; people also preferred to purchase India made crackers though Chinese crackers were available in market at cheaper prices.
This was the impact of a social media campaign against use of Chinese products in the wake of the China Government siding with Pakistan in the Uri attack incident.
As China has been opposing India’s demand of declaring Masood Azhar as a terrorist in the United Nations, the social media groups have started campaign against it.
Beginning from the crackers to garland lights, candle light, many Diwali essentials come from China and are sold at the market at cheap prices. Poor people of Odisha used to prefer the cheap crackers so far.
However, when the issue of China supporting Pakistan came to the fore, the poor people took a stand and refrained from buying Chinese crackers.
Country is first and not Diwali and cheap crackers from China, said Deepak Pradhan, an engineering student. like Deepak, many youths on their own refrained from buying China crackers and even some of them also stopped taking mobile phone sets made in China.
Madhusudan Beura, a cracker shop owners, said people did not ask for China crackers this time. Many cracker shop owners were worried over the low sale rate of China product.
Besides the public mood against China crackers, police have made a rule that no shopkeeper can keep above 500 kg of Indian crackers and 200 kg of Chinese crackers.
Many other shop owners thanked the police for making this norm so that they could not store more than 200 kg of China crackers. The shop owners are worried on how to remove the China crackers from their showcases.