Kosal Kranti Dal stages protest for separate Koshal state

Following is a report from The Statesman:

BHUBANESWAR, 23 DEC: The Kosal Kranti Dal, an outfit demanding formation of a separate Kosal state with the 11 existing districts of Kalahandi, Nawapara,  Bolangir,  Bargarh, Sambalpur,  Boudh,  Deogarh,  Jharsuguda, Phulbani,  Sundergarh,  Nawarangpur,  Subarnapur and the Athmallik sub-division staged a dharna here today.

Castigating the state government and chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik for widening the gap between coastal and western Orissa and increasing the regional disparity, leaders of the party who had come from western parts of the state warned of an agitation in line with Telegana.

“Be it world class universities, IIT, regional centre of AIIMS, National Law University or any other project, Mr Patnaik has acted like his predecessors and located everything in the coastal belt,” charged a protestor. It is a matter of shame that child sale, hunger death, lowest literacy and lowest per capital income as well as expenditure is recorded in western parts of the state. The more recent notoriety earned by these districts is that of farmer suicide and death in police firing, he charged.

The Western Orissa Development Council ( WODC), formed to uplift the region and overcome the regional imbalance, has been reduced to a joke. Its headquarters is in Bhubaneswar and the Council is a puppet organisation, they alleged.

In a memorandum to the Governor, the Kosal Kranti Dal said disparities have grown due to continued neglect and misadministration. The demand for a separate state of Kosal Pradesh with a separate Assembly, secretariat and High Court is the only solution to the problem of backwardness as the region has all the requisite natural resources to develop. It has a distinct language and culture, noted the memorandum.

The protest dharna was led by party president Mr PK Mishra. Leaders of the party ~ Mr Narendra Hota, Mr Jagannath Mund, Mr Upendra Mohapatra, Mr PC Naik, Mr Gajendra Meher, Ms Minakshi Majhi addressed the protestors exhorting them to launch a mass movement for separate statehood.