Poll camps full of sound & fury

The Statesman, April 14, 2009

BHAWANIPATNA, April 13: During elections, Kalahandi turns out to be a favourite destination for the national level political leaders. They seem to be living in the past, when the district had earned notoriety for child sale and hunger deaths and fail to address real issues, as they are sadly out of touch with the problems faced by people of the district today.
Kalahandi has, to a large extent, overcome the acute poverty and distress-related child sale and hunger death syndrome. It has developed a fairly decent irrigation network and is faced with a multitude of new challenges and issues.
But political parties fail to appreciate the ground reality as they whirr around in choppers addressing election meetings.
With the election temperature rising the contesting candidates as well as their respective Central leaders, be it Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Mr Rahul Gandhi, Mr LK Advani or chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik, all have ignored the current issues concerning the people of this region.
The closest that they get to the matters concerning people here is when they refer to the KBK package, a decade old scheme or the more recent extension of it christened as Biju KBK programme.
The voters attend the election meetings with the hope of hearing the leaders addressing their problems like non-payment of support price to farmers, deplorable road condition, establishment of technical institutes and central university, mega projects like Vedanta Aluminium Plant related displacement and environment impacts.
Their hopes are based on the fact that some political leaders had raised some of these points before the elections.
But, strangely, with the campaign tempo picking up all of it has been engulfed by rhetoric, accusations against each other and promises.
For instance the Hati river problem. Surplus water of Indravati reservoir is released to the Hati river and during monsoon this causes flood almost every year. The river bridge gets submerged and road communication near Junagarh over NH 201 comes to a grinding halt for days till the water recedes.
Chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik had laid the foundation stone for a second bridge over the river five years ago near Karmeli ghat and another near Junagarh.
But even after five years of his rule the bridges are yet to come up and still worse nobody questions nor does Mr Patnaik explain as to why he has not fulfilled the promise made five years ago.
The district does not have a technical education college. During last elections, foundation stone for a medical college at Jaring was laid with the promise that a 200 bed hospital will come up.
Not a brick has been laid over the last five years for this medical college and hospital project. The chief minister, however, continues to hop around in a chopper canvassing for votes telling people how his government was committed to uplift of tribals and development of backward regions.
People of the district have staged agitation demanding establishment of a central university, they have, in the past three to four years met the chief minister on this demand. No commitment has been made till date.
Even the most talked about pre-poll issue ~ Vedanta Aluminium project related displacements and its impact on the environment, has faded away during this election. It may be noted that in 2004, just prior to the election, Mr Patnaik laid foundation stone for the project even before any of the clearances were accorded to the company.
Contrary to expectations candidates have not raised the project related debate in their current campaigns.
Three candidates who were involved in anti-Vedanta project agitation are in the fray and yet the matter is not being discussed. Prominent among them are Mr Bhakta Charan Das who is contesting as a Congress candidate from the Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat. He had floated an outfit called Green Kalahandi to oppose the project and its proposal to mine the Niyamagiri hills.
Mr Jayanta Naik of Sachetan Nagarik Manch contesting as BJD candidate for Bhawanipatna Assembly seat and Mr Santosh Mund contesting as Independent candidate for Narla Assembly seat had also agitated against the project.
But in the hullabaloo of electioneering Vedanta seems to have vanished from the agenda of these leaders. n sns