Raman Singh to campaign for BJP in Odisha rural polls

BHUBANESWAR: Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh will be in Odisha on Thursday lending his weight to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s panchayat campaign. The BJP's decision to rope in Singh, when the Biju Janata Dal has decided to include the Mahanadi issue in its campaign for the upcoming panchayat polls has been a controversial one.

Odisha has accused the Chhattisgarh government of building barrages on the Mahanadi, a river that flows from Chhattisgarh to Odisha, and impeding the flow of water critical to its future needs. Singh has dismissed the allegation as politically motivated, pointing out that much of the river flows unharnessed straight into the Bay of Bengal.

"Raman Singh has been acting against the interest of the state. The BJP's decision to invite him to campaign in Odisha is a self-inflicting one," senior CPI (M) leader Janardan Pati told the media.

Singh is scheduled to speak a rallies in Balangir, Jharsuguda and Sundargarh districts on Thursday. In response to Singh’s rallies the BJD has decided to organise Jala Satyagraha (a form of protest made famous in the Narmada Bachao campaign) and Jala Aarti in the river at Cuttack and Sambalpur.

Naveen Patnaik’s government has rejected the Centre’s move to set up a negotiating committee since it wouldn’t really stop Singh from completing the barrages. In a recent letter the Hirakud Dam authorities have reportedly told the state’s water department that water flowing into the reservoir in December 2016 had fallen by 33 per cent from the last ten year’s average.

Such unsubstantiated claims says environment activist Ranjan Panda of Water Initiative are just the BJD’s ways of politicising the issue. "Neither has the state shown any urgency in moving the National Green Tribunal nor has Patnaik made any serious effort to engage with Chhattisgarh, which is the only way a real solution to this problem can be achieved," said Panda