The Opposition Congress and the BJP in Orissa on Monday turned their guns on the Naveen Patnaik government for the police action against those opposing displacement in three gram panchayats in Jagatsinghpur district and at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district
A central team of the BJP, comprising five senior leaders, visited Jagatsinghpur and Kalinganagar and expressed their solidarity with the villagers who were not willing to hand over their land for the proposed steel projects of Posco-India and Tata Steel. They demanded a judicial inquiry into the police action against the villagers opposing land acquisition for the Posco project.
The BJP team comprised Balbir Punj, Nishikant Dubey, Bhupinder Yadav, Rudra Narayan Pani and Dharmendra Pradhan. State BJP president Jual Oram, among others, accompanied the team.
At Kalinganagar, the BJP leaders interacted with tribal activists of the Bisthapan Birodhi Janamanch, the organisation opposing displacement by the Tata Steel project, and the agitating locals.
Call for CBI probe
Condemning frequent police action against the activists, the leaders demanded a CBI probe into the May 12 police firing and into the killing of Laxman Jamuda, a resident of Chandia village, in the incident.
Meanwhile, the Congress announced a State-wide agitation against the forcible land acquisition for industries. The party teams would soon visit the Posco project area and Kalinganagar.
Silent march
In other development, a number of eminent persons participated in a silent march organised by the Odisha Nagarik Samaj in Bhubaneswar condemning the killing of a tribal in police firing at Kalinganagar and the lathi charge on the villagers opposing the Posco project.
Those who took part in the march included the former Union Minister, Braja Kishore Tripathy; veteran singer Prafulla Kar; social activist Bhagabanprakash; the former State Women's Commission member, Namrata Chaddha; and Editor of the Oriya daily Sambad Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.
