Odisha CM Mohan Majhi takes Cabinet to Sambalpur in ‘strategic move' with eye on ‘neglected' region

Indian Express

21-04-2025

Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi Monday, along with his 10 Cabinet ministers and senior officials, held a grievance cell hearing meeting in politically significant Sambalpur, as the administration claimed it was the first meeting outside Bhubaneswar.
According to officials, Majhi heard grievances of around 2,400 people and received several petitions during the one-day session at the office of the Sambalpur Municipal Corporation. He also approved grants of Rs 19.50 lakh from the CM's relief fund for 18 people suffering from critical diseases.
Majhi's decision to move the meeting to Sambalpur stemmed from fact that the BJP considers western Odisha, with five Lok Sabha seats and at least 38 Assembly seats, as its stronghold compared to the coastal belt.
This also comes at a time when voices of a separate statehood in the western region are growing louder. Last month, senior BJP leader and Sambalpur MLA Jayanarayan Mishra called the merger of Odisha's western Kosal region with the rest of the state a 'historic blunder', with the Opposition BJD alleging that the ruling party was trying to 'divide the state'.
At a government function, Mishra, a five-time MLA, alleged that the Kosal region has been neglected for years. 'We have been exploited in every sphere… mining, agriculture, forest and service. We have been denied our cultural rights,' Mishra had said.
Describing his government a 'Lokanka Sarkar' (people's government), which is sensitive to people's issues, Majhi also took a dig at former CM Naveen Patnaik for 'not hearing people's grievances'. 'There have been instances in the past when people facing various issues were trying to meet the chief minister and other ministers but they could not. After our government came to power, we are sensitive towards peoples' issues and trying to resolve those,' said Majhi.
He claimed that 88% of the 9,377 grievance petitions received by the CM's grievance cell have been addressed over the past 10 months.
During his 24-year stint at the helm, Patnaik visited the CM's grievance cell for only 76 days and never held any grievance meeting after August 16, 2008.
A senior government official said it was a 'strategic move' to hold a meeting in a region where people have felt 'alienated' for years because of government apathy. 'The chief minister, with the move, not just tried to bridge the gap between the state capital and Sambalpur, which is 300 km away, but also sent a strong message that the BJP government cares for all regions equally,' said a senior government official.
With people from 10 western Odisha districts attending the meeting, the message will resonate across the region loud and clear, the official said.
Senior Cabinet Minister Rabi Narayan Naik, also from the western region, said the initiative will ease people's hassle of travelling to Bhubaneswar to submit their grievances to the CM. Similar grievance hearing meetings will be conducted in all regions in future, the CM said.
Traditionally known as a Congress stronghold, Odisha's Western region has always remained prominent with successive governments picking ministers from the region.
To expand its presence and combat BJP's growing dominance in the region, former CM Patnaik, for the first time in the 2019 Assembly polls, contested from Bijepur Assembly segment in the region's Bargarh district. However he didn't leave his bastion of Hinjili in Ganjam district. After winning both the seats, he vacated Bijepur.
A similar strategy was followed in 2024. Patnaik fought from Kantabanji in Balangir district to counter BJP's surge in the region but he lost.
After coming to power, the BJP kept its thrust on the region by picking Patnagarh MLA K V Singh Deo as one of the two deputy CMs and also three Cabinet ministers from this region. Even though BJP won 20 of the state's 21 Lok Sabha seats, only Sundargarh MP Jual Oram and Sambalpur MP Dharmendra Pradhan have been inducted into the Cabinet in the Narendra Modi government.