Elephantine issue in Orissa!

All politicians are wont to making elephantine promises to win votes. In some parts of Bhubaneswar LS constituency, there is the crying need for one such promise — elephantine, literally. But politicians are for once not sure whether to make it.

When there’s a jumbo-sized problem facing voters, the promise of relief also develops an elephantinely-long gestation period in being made, if at all. Assurances of all hues by parties and candidates come nineteen to the dozen. But what happens when voters demand protection from elephant attacks with elections just round the bend?

Candidates campaigning in Chandaka, Andharua and Bharatpur villages of Bhubaneswar LS are grappling with one predominant issue: how to save the people (read voters) from getting mauled by wild elephants.

Proliferating human habitation and dwindling grassland cover over the past two decades has introduced a new chapter of man-elephant conflict over habitat in these parts. At least 24 villagers have been crushed to death in the last seven years alone. Summers and winters alike, elephant herds from Chandaka wildlife sanctuary relentlessly intrude into human habitation and inflict serious damage to life, limb and property. The litany of woe is unrelenting — elephants destroy standing crops, bury nurseries and trample villagers to death. The villagers plead helplessness in a catch-22 situation: they cannot abandon their farms that previously sustained the jumbos and they do not have the means to spare enough food for the herds to keep them away.

The rival candidates are trying to get around the problem by promising to create a hue and cry about it in the corridors of power. But no one is willing to promise a solution. For, howsoever well-meaning an MP may be, the elephants may not choose to be compliant.

BJD candidate Prasanna Patsani has said for the umpteenth time that if elected he would make “elephant trespass” a big issue in Parliament.Not willing to lose the initiative, Congress candidate Soumya Ranjan Patnaik has promised to divert a portion of the MPLAD fund for better fencing and deeper trenches around the sanctuary.

In neighbouring Jatni Assembly segment, all five contestants — S. Routray of the Congress, Sarat Paikaray of BJD, Simanchal Naik of BSP, Dutikrushna Behera of the RPI and the Samajwadi’s Sayed Sekhawat Ali — are being bombarded with questions from locals about their plans to end the menace. After a patient hearing, the candidates show all empathy without promising anything concrete. Not that they are entirely to blame — there simply isn’t the wherewithal to eradicate the menace. But with deaths mounting by the season, the voters aren’t in no mood to listen.

Politicians are now racing against time in search for a suitable promise to make. No wonder, because there’s lot’s at stake. This ‘elephant votebank’ is no less than 17,000-strong in Jatni Assembly segment alone. Politicians never run out of promises, they say. But here, they Poor Renuka! It’s ‘dressing down’have run out of ideas on how not to make one.