The terrified Queen !

The terrified Queen !

The Koreans are fuming! After paying everyone in Delhi and Bhubaneswar, the much coveted land for the steel plant is yet to be in their lap! The Queen is also equally worried! He has to deliver the land, otherwise the Koreans are going to bay for his blood till he issues the refund cheque!

This month can be rightly called the Posco month. Oriyas in offices, paan shops and village squares hotly debated whether Naveen would order his police to march in on 15th April which was supposed to be the D- day. Whether the brave villagers of Dhenkia, Nuagaon ,etc would relent and give in? Babudom is equally apprehensive. No Posco means no foreign trips or jobs for their semi- literate children.

There was a strong build up of khaki clad police awaiting their orders to march in and take over the 4,000 acres odd of land which the stubborn villagers are resisting . Women , children and patriarchs in a rare show of complete unity and bravery have declared their opposition to the Posco plant.

The Queen who hates conflict fervently hoped for an “amicable settlement” in a peaceful manner whatever that means. The fraud has forgotten the hail of police bullets which mowed down 11 tribals in Kalinga nagar last year! He was terrified to adopt the "Kalinga nagar way" since the entire country’s media and human rights activists were breathing down his neck!

Amnesty International warned him of the consequences if the police assaulted children and women who guarded the bamboo barricades. The site turned into a pilgrimage as a steady stream of media persons and leaders trekked in. Readers were overwhelmed with a media blitzkrieg of Posco news every day !

It truly a war like situation with more than 2,000 armed policemen surrounding the 5,000 odd villagers who chose to cut themselves off from the outside world. Does the Queen think that this is some enemy territory which has to be acquired and the denizens thrown into the Bay of Bengal? Ofcourse, the single pocket babu in his office must have advised him to push in armed police since the Koreans were getting impatient.

Which democratic country in the world moves in heavily armed police to confront unarmed protestors who are protesting peacefully what they believed to be wrong? Everyone knows the Koreans have the Queen in their complete grip and he cannot even pee without their nod !

Will anyone of us leave willingly and peacefully if we are asked to shift from our homes? Why should we become puppets for some MNC which has come here to loot the state?

The grand old Congress chief seeing the public mood could not wait any longer. In a sudden turnaround, he announced that the party was opposed to forced takeover and displacement of people, notwithstanding the Sardar’s eager wish to see the project through. Ofcourse , this is classic Congress double speak.

Ultimately, the Queen had to politely suggest to the Korean chief who met him last week in the Secretariat that the company has to directly negotiate with the people who are losing their land and he cannot do much to help them. The chief was shocked to realize that the huge police mobilization and all the drama for the last few weeks was useless! Alas, only if the Koreans would have known this when they handed out the moolah to him two years ago!

The worst blow to Posco was the turnaround even by the people who had been carted in to speak in their favour at the public hearing on 15th April. Everybody opposed the port since they realized how much of damage it could cause to their fishing and farm lands.

I hope you guys know that the Posco deal is the biggest rip off in three centuries. In comparison the East India Company firangis were handkerchief thieves! The Koreans stand to make at least 100,000 crores alone from the sale of iron ore from their captive mines. They are being given 25% of the state’s high quality iron ore reserves. The Queen has happily sold off these mines for a song and his Swiss Bank accounts must be overflowing now with slush money !

Why should they even bother to set up the steel plant? All they have to do is to export the ore! Morever, the SEZ status would confer limitless benefits on them and ofcourse the state or centre would get nothing ! But do not think that the babus would get nothing ! They shall arm twist the Koreans to employ their offsprings and nephews !

May Lord Jagannath drive out these flat faced monkeys from our land and save the state from this disastrous deal!