Black Day

January O5, 2012: a black day to be reckoned with for years to come on the part of the Indians and Odias as well. An awful landmine detonation during two-day bandh, called by Maoists took the priceless lives of three effervescent jawans and left other three severely wounded. Recent antecedents sound the alarm of ‘red’ risk towards the ensuing polls to the three tier Panchayatiraj institutions of our state, Odisha. Meanwhile, the state election commission has taken stock of the situation throughout the state in a meeting at Bhubaneswar with all collectors and SPs on the 4^th of this month. Concern overshadowed the conference over the ‘Mao’ threat. It is but natural. Barbaric occurrence at Kotpad in Kandhamal district is an eye opener for the state government. State Constable Union has surfaced a serious contention, in the meantime. They expressed resentment over the sending of the sepoys for operations keeping Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) at bay. It is quite logical to argue for the uplift of the police force in the state. Infrastructure development is the prime necessity at this point of time to boost the morale of the police. Our state is going to the poll for a staggering number of 854 Zillah Parishad zones. 6, 235 Sarpanches and the same numbers of Panchayat Samiti members are to be elected during the marathon process. Not less than 87, 521 ward members are also to be nominated by the voters of Odisha. A gigantic electorate mass, containing more than 2 crore, 44 lakh and 86 thousand is going to exercise the franchise in the forthcoming panchayat elections. More than four lakh candidates are expected to be in the fray.  To see the said figure sheet one can gauge the huge gap between the general elections and the elections to the local bodies. Massive number of the contenders is not the sole challenge to the police. Remote patches, in and around the state, some of which are Mao- perimeters are certain to pose grievous intimidation for the state peace keeping force. That ill-fated day at Kandhamal alerted us giving the precaution to refresh our preparedness with a view to let the panchayat elections go quietly.