BHUBANESWAR: As the Posco issue raged in the Assembly, it gathered a storm outside. All Opposition political parties ganged up against the State Government and demanded immediate suspension of work at the proposed steel project site. While Congress termed the violence as an oppression by the Government to throttle the peaceful agitation, Left parties sought a judicial inquiry. Senior Congress leader Narasingha Mishra said, the incident was deplorable and demanded an impartial probe. An investigation by Lokpal or a time-bound judicial inquiry must be ordered into the incident in which one person was killed and scores were injured. He also condemned the arrest of Jayant Biswal saying police had framed him in the case. “Though Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had said industrialisation will not be imposed on the people, he is doing just the opposite. There was no need for the coastal road. It was just an attempt to employ goons to gag the anti-Posco agitators,” the senior Congress leader told mediapersons. He also questioned the tendering process saying a private company with bad reputation has been hired deliberately for suppressing the voice of the agitation which was peaceful. Since all plans to thwart the anti-Posco agitators failed, violence was adopted as the means. Mishra said, Naveen, the district administration and police were responsible for the loss of life. “The BJD Government is acting as an agent of Posco by pushing the project forward for which no MoU is in existence now,” he said. He also called for stringent action against the anti-socials and the contractor firm. Meanwhile, five Opposition political parties, including the Left parties, have demanded a judicial inquiry into the violence. The CPI, CPM, Forward Bloc, RJD and Samajwadi Party sought that construction work of the proposed Posco be stopped till the judicial commission submitted its report. Describing the land acquisition and construction work by the IDCO for the plant as illegal, the leaders wanted that the work be stopped as the MoU had already expired. For the first time in Odisha history, private army was used to suppress the democratic movement of people, they said. The leaders will meet Governor MC Bhandare and the Chief Minister to take up the issue. A delegation of the five parties would soon visit the area. They also will organise protest demonstrations in all the districts against the violence.
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