The election for the Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) is due since September 2013. But the Government has not taken steps to hold the poll to the ULB since.
Of course, now all the ULBs of the State have been functioning without elected representatives since 2018 as the Government has not conducted the civic body elections.
Now it is presumed that the election for ULBs may be held soon and accordingly a notification will be brought out. So, now the question is will the BJD Government take step to conduct election in the RMC or evade the same as usual?
It is alleged that due to unavailability of elected representatives, many development works are not only hampered but also on many occasions the denizens of the RMC area are deprived of the minimum basic amenities to be provided by the ULB.
It may be noted here that the erstwhile Rourkela Municipality Council was under BJD control between 2008 and 2013 and many development works were undertaken within the municipality area. But due to the differences among certain party leaders, the BJD position in Rourkela was in sinking stage.Despite a notification of ULBs election, including the Rourkela Municipality in the State, was published in September 2013 but due to the acute resentment and opposition by the lawyers’ forum, the election process in entire western Odisha had to be postponed and that was conducive for the Rourkela BJD given its weak standing.
Though later in November 2013, the notification for ULBs election in western Odisha was published but Rourkela was not there as the State Government had already expressed its intention to upgrade Rourkela Municipality to a Corporation and had sought opinion from the public about its area.
So, there was a perception at that time that after formation of the RMC, the election will be held. In the meantime, in 2014 Assembly election, BJD candidate Sarada Prasad Nayak had lost the Rourkela seat (under which RMC area comes) to BJP candidate Dilip Ray despite all-out efforts by the BJD and its supremo Naveen Patnaik.
And on November 14, 2014, the State Government had notified the area of RMC having 40 wards merging Jagda and Jhartarang panchayats, which was opposed by the local tribals under the leadership of George Tikey. And finally, the tribal organisation had filed a case in the Orissa High Court and the court on March 27, 2016 had given a stay order not to include those two panchayats in the election process.
Since then the State Government is not taking any initiative to conduct the election in the pretext of stay order and at the same time is not submitting any reply to vacate the stay.
Many experts say if the State Government had shown any interest to conduct the election, then it could have held the same keeping those two panchayats outside till the final decision of the court and merging other areas which are interested to be included in the RMC area. But many political pundits here say the court stay is a pretext to avoid poll as the BJD’s position in Rourkela was poor due to the influence of the BJP and Dilip Ray in particular.
However now, the situation has somewhat changed.
Now George Tirkey has already joined Congress and become the Rourkela DCC chief. As such, he can not oppose the election. Similarly, after being ignored by party bosses in national level Dilip Ray has left the BJP and he has also a sizeable supporters in RMC area which may affect BJP votes.