The constant battering from the pen of the Biju Janata Dal legislator, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik at his own party`s flawed means of running of the affairs in the party now deserves a relook. Earlier in the columns of his own newspaper, The Sambad, Patnaik had expressed his discomfiture at the way the party supremo, Naveen Patnaik, allows the process of governance being handled unilaterally by a handful few. In his editorial columns, Patnaik was diabolic and straight dubbing his party chief highly dependent.  

On Monday editorial by him, his tirades are voluminous and go at length to point at the faulty pattern in which the law is being implemented in the case of the recent murder of a teacher in Kalahandi district of Odisha, Mamita Meher. There is no denying that the murder was ghastly and coldblooded. But the bone of contention is the minister of state for home affairs of Odisha, Divya Shankar Mishra, alleged to be in league with the perpetrators of the crime.

An assumptive charge has yet to be corroborated by the process of the investigation that is underway.

However, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, in his editorial has hastened to draw a comparison with an incident dating back to about six years when a hospital in Bhubaneswar was in the news following an accidental fire incident inside.

When a minister in the Naveen cabinet was dropped from the council on equally alleged charges of siding with the owner of the hospital.

What is the moot issue is, whether a party MLA can maintain two standards? Being in the party and at the same time voicing against the party through writings in his newspaper. Which Soumya Ranajn has done a few times in the past already, including the latest on last Monday`s editorial. However, there has been no reaction from the chief minister’s side or from any quarter of the BJD.

Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, who has traveled through a few other political lanes, has always encountered such contradictions whenever he had tried to take such a stance within the party. And such stances normally are traditionally not condoned by any party leadership. Soumya Ranjan, a media baron who owns the largest circulated Odia daily newspaper in Odisha, has every right to use his editorial space for any such views.

But, the pattern of governance adopted by the BJD regime is neither new nor was it after Soumya made his entry into the BJD. Being a seasoned politician and highly educated person, Patnaik beforehand should have made the choice over joining the BJD.

But doing the same over and over again indicates a current underneath. And as regards Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, somehow his opinions may have appeared to be implosive with dissent but, there could be many from the BJD who had made their exit from the party on similar grounds having rubbed the leadership on the wrong way. 

Ironically it may sound assumptive but, this should not be the final flicker from the ebbing flame. 

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