Biswal back at the helm after 10 yrs

BHUBANESWAR, DEC 6:The wheel of time has turned a full circle for 60-year-old Congress leader and the new Orissa Chief Minister, Hemananda...

BHUBANESWAR, DEC 6:The wheel of time has turned a full circle for 60-year-old Congress leader and the new Orissa Chief Minister, Hemananda Biswal. It was exactly a decade ago that he had been picked by then AICC chief Rajiv Gandhi to become Orissa’s 12th chief minister, much to the surprise of political circles. This would be his second stint in the post.The first time, his swearing-in ceremony had taken place on December 7, 1989, just three months prior to the Assembly polls. In a rare coincidence, this time, he was sworn in on December 6 and the Assembly elections are again just three months away.

Biswal, currently the Orissa PCC president, is coming to the post with the state unit of the Congress in disarray and the stupendous task of relief and restoration work in cyclone-battered coastal Orissa hanging on his head. “Good governance and relief and restoration work will be my top priority,” he said, soon after his election as the new leader of the Congress Legislature Party. Most people had asked“Biswal, who?” when he was first chosen to lead the government 10 years ago. But now, he is one of the top party leaders in the state, having carved a niche for himself. When the Congress was routed in the 1990 Assembly election and Biju Patnaik succeeded him as Chief Minister, Biswal was one of 10 party MLAs who had won.

When the party managed to scrape through and form government after the 1995 Assembly polls, senior leader J.B. Patnaik was chosen for the post of Chief Minister. Biswal was persuaded to join the government as one of the deputy Chief Ministers. The state’s first tribal Chief Minister, Biswal held the portfolio of Panchayati Raj and quit in May last year after he was chosen by the All India Congress Committee leadership to head the PCC.

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Prior to that, he had a brush with Patnaik when he insisted on contesting the election for the post of PCC president held at that time by Patnaik. A showdown was averted by the party leaders when no election was held and Patnaik was allowed to continuetill Biswal’s nomination to the post.

During his third term as a legislator, Biswal was inducted as minister of state in the J.B. Patnaik ministry in March 1985, but he was dropped from the ministry in December 1986 along with two others on charges of indiscipline. The surprise of surprises came when the party high command picked him up from nowhere to head the government four years later.

A grass-root worker, Biswal began his political career as elected chairman of the Kirmira Panchayat Samiti in Jharsuguda sub-division of then undivided Sambalpur district in 1967. He was elected again in 1971. He was elected to the Assembly on a Congress ticket in 1974 from the tribal Laikera Assembly seat. He was elected from the seat four consecutive times thereafter.

The RJD’s key face and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Tejashwi Yadav, party supremo Lalu Yadav’s son, will again contest from his stronghold Raghopur.

Amid Mahagathbandhan crisis, RJD unveils list of 143, drops 36 MLAs, focuses on ‘M-Y’

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