Senior BJP leader Jayanarayan Mishra has triggered a controversy by calling the merger of Odisha’s western region Kosal with the state a “historic blunder”, with the principal Opposition Biju Janata Dal (BJD) accusing the ruling party of trying to “divide the state”. While the BJP has distanced itself from Mishra’s remarks, the BJD has seized on the row to turn the heat on the Mohan Charan Majhi-led government. The Opposition BJD and Congress MLAs have also raked it up in the Assembly, creating an uproar against the BJP. On Tuesday, the Assembly descended into a chaos with the members of the Opposition and Treasury benches even engaging in scuffles during Question Hour. Last Friday, Mishra, a five-time MLA from Sambalpur in Kosal, said the region has been neglected for years. Speaking at a government event in his constituency, he said, “We have been exploited in every sphere … mining, agriculture, forest and service. We have been denied our cultural rights. The integration of Kosal with Odisha was a historic blunder.” Mishra’s statement has put the BJP in a spot as the party rode its “Odia Asmita (pride)” plank to storm to power in the state for the first time on its own in the 2024 Assembly polls, when it defeated the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD decisively. “Is this the pride (asmita) they were talking about?” said senior BJD leader and eight-time MLA Ranendra Pratap Swain. Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik said Mishra’s remarks “belittle” the state’s history. The BJP has distanced itself from Mishra’s remarks, with party MLA Babu Singh saying the latter had expressed his “personal opinion”. Speaking to reporters outside the Assembly on Tuesday, Mishra maintained he had not said anything wrong, adding that he was seeking development for his region. What is the Kosal region? Kosal, also known as Kosalanchal, generally refers to Odisha’s western region with a population of over 2 crore. It broadly comprises 10 districts – Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Bargarh, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Deogarh, Sonepur, Boudh and Balangir — most of which are located along the border with Chhattisgarh. The Kosal region was controlled by feudal rulers before Independence. While Odisha was created as a state in 1936 on the basis of language, the Kosal region (barring Sambalpur, which had merged with the state in 1936) merged with the state only in 1948, when other princely states also joined the Indian Union after Independence. However, the Kosal region’s merger had initially faced resistance from the rulers of Patna, Kalahandi and Sonepur, who had even raised demands for a separate Kosal state. Multiple resolutions were passed opposing the merger and, as a last resort, these rulers had called for local autonomy alleging that in the absence of an independent authority, power would be concentrated in the politically dominant coastal region. How did the demand for Kosal statehood grow? After the merger went through in 1948, the movement for a separate Kosal state died down over time. By March 1967, when Rajendra Narayan Singh Deo, a prominent leader from the region, became the CM, the movement lost its momentum. However, in the 1990s, the movement was revived when Prem Ram Dubey, a lawyer from Sambalpur, pressed for a separate Kosal state, arguing that despite its glorious past, the region had been neglected because of its merger with Odisha. He published the Kosal Khabar newspaper, mobilised the Kosal Sena, and submitted a memorandum to the President on the issue. The Kosal statehood movement got a fillip when Pramod Mishra formed the Kosal State Coordination Committee in 1996. Pramod Mishra said the “acute regional imbalance” and “neglect of the region” by successive governments had led to the demand for a separate Kosal state. “The Kosal kingdom was never part of Odisha, which was historically called Udra, Kalinga and Utkala. Not just culturally or linguistically, Kosal has many differences with other parts of Odisha. The language and culture of the western region is different. The western region has been facing apathy from the rulers, which only strengthened the demand for a separate Kosal state,” Pramod Mishra told The Indian Express. The movement gathered pace when former BJP MLA from Saintala in the region’s Balangir district, Bal Gopal Mishra launched the Kosal Mukti Rath Yatra to garner support for it in 2004. That year, then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, during a visit to Balangir, had stated that the Centre would consider the demand for a separate Kosal state only if the Odisha Assembly passed a resolution in its favour. How have successive govts made interventions? Former CM Biju Patnaik had formed a committee in 1991 to look into regional imbalances. In its report three years later, the panel identified 34 “very backward” and 25 “backward” blocks in the western Odisha. In 1998, the state government constituted the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) to accelerate the pace of development and mitigate regional disparities in 10 districts of the region and one sub-division in the Angul district, starting with an initial grant of Rs 3 crore. In the 2024-25 Budget, the last under the previous BJD government, the WODC was allocated Rs 500 crore. The BJP government has made the same allocation in the 2025-26 Budget, with an additional Rs 200 crore each earmarked for the newly-formed Northern and Southern Odisha Development Councils. In 2004, the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government set up a commission headed by S K Mohanty, a former Orissa High Court justice, to study regional imbalances in the state. Though the panel had submitted its report in 2008, the government kept the report under wraps without citing any reasons. What is western Odisha’s political heft? The western Odisha, with five Lok Sabha seats and about 38 Assembly seats, has always been at the centre of the state’s political discourse. Successive governments have taken western Odisha into consideration while appointing ministers in a bid to ensure proper political representation from the region. Western Odisha was traditionally a Congress stronghold, but the BJP has now established its dominance in the region, especially in comparison to its hold in the coastal and southern parts of the state. During its 24 years in power, the BJD had left no stone unturned in building its presence in the region. Considering the BJP’s growing strength, then CM Naveen Patnaik had for the first time, in the 2019 Assembly polls, contested from Bijepur Assembly segment in the region’s Bargarh district along with his bastion of Hinjili in Ganjam district. He won both the seats, but later vacated Bijepur. Though Patnaik had adopted a similar strategy in 2024 and contested from Kantabanji in Balangir district to counter BJP’s surge in the region, he lost the seat to the BJP. Forming its own government in Odisha for the first time, the BJP chose Patnagarh MLA K V Singh Deo from western Odisha as one of the two deputy CMs. Besides, three Cabinet ministers are also from this region. While the BJP won 20 of the state’s 21 Lok Sabha seats, Sundargarh MP Jual Oram and Sambalpur MP Dharmendra Pradhan were inducted as the Cabinet ministers in the Narendra Modi government.
