The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Thursday appointed new district observers for all 30 districts of the state. Headed by CM Naveen Patnaik, the ruling party issued an official order on the appointment of the observers.
Interestingly, many biggies including School and Mass and Education Minister Samir Ranjan Das, Cuttack Mayor Subhash Singh, senior leaders Tusharkanti Behera and Debasish Samantaray were excluded from the list.
On the other hand, Arun Sahu, Tukuni Sahu and Rohit Pujari were included in the list.
Five of them have been given the charge of two districts while the remaining will be in charge of one district each.
On the orders of CM Naveen Patnaik, Sushanta Singh was appointed observer of both Bolangir and Deogarh district, Pramila Mallik for both Dhenkanal and Khurda, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak of Gajapati and Rayagada, Pranab Prakash Dash of Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj and Dibya Shankar Mishra of Koraput and Malkangiri.
Similarly, Pratap Keshari Deb has been appointed as the observer of Balasore district, Prasanta Kumar Mudli of Angul, Sudhir Kumar Samal of Bargarh and Pranab Kumar Balabantaray of Bhadrak district.
Moreover, Usha Devi has been appointed for Cuttack while Arun Kumar Sahoo of Jagatsinghpur, Bijay Nayak of Kandhamal, Prafulla Kumar Mallik of Kendrapara, Iswar Panigrahi of Nabrangpur, Padmanav Behera of Nayagarh, Tukuni Sahoo of Nuapada, Ranendra Pratap Swain of Puri, Nalinikanta Pradhan of Sambalpur, Pritiranjan Gharai of Sundargarh, Nabakishore Das of Kalahandi, Pradip Kumar Amat of Ganjam, Soubhagya Nayak of Boudh, Ashok Chandra Panda of Jajpur, Sarada Prasad Nayak of Jharsuguda and Rohit Pujari of Subarnapur.
It is speculated that CM Naveen Patnaik removed School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Das over his involvement in the death of Gop Zilla Parishad (ZP) member, Dharmendra Sahoo.
Both BJP and Congress have been demanding his arrest.