'Bulbul' claims 2 lives in Odisha, extensive damage to crops
Bhubaneswar: Heavy rain and high-velocity winds triggered by cyclone 'Bulbul' claimed at least two lives and wreaked havoc in most parts of coastal Odisha, officials said on Sunday.
A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel was seriously injured during restoration operation in Bhadrak district, Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Shyama Bhakta Mishra said.
The cyclone also caused extensive damage to crops in the coastal districts, leaving farmers in the lurch, the officials said. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is scheduled to make an aerial survey of the affected districts on Monday afternoon, an official said.
Patnaik will review damage caused by the calamity and restoration measures undertaken thereafter, he said.
Though the cyclone skipped Odisha and made landfall between West Bengal and Bangladesh coasts on Saturday, heavy downpour and gale-force winds left a trail of destruction, damaging hundreds of houses, uprooting trees, electric poles and affecting telecom towers in the state, they said.
While the death of an elderly man was reported earlier owing to wall collapse in Kendrapara on Saturday, another casualty due to drowning came to light on Sunday in Mahakalapada area of the district, a senior official said.
Manoranjan Prasad, who headed an NDRF unit, was busy clearing uprooted trees in Basuvedpur area when an electric pole fell on him, Mishra said.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital and then shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
"#CycloneBulbul - Personally sad that Manoranjan - a colleague of #NDRFamily got serious head/spine injury from falling electric pole while clearing fallen trees @Bhadrak.
Pls #Pray4Manoranjan. He needs&deserves it," NDRF Director General Satyanarayan Pradhan said in a tweet.
The authorities had put in place elaborate arrangements to deal with the impact of the cyclonic storm in over 10 of Odisha's 30 districts.
Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore districts bore the maximum brunt and suffered extensive damage to crops, the senior official said.
Around 40 per cent standing crops and over six lakh hectares of cultivable land spread over five districts have been damaged due to rain and strong winds triggered by 'Bulbul', Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) P K Jena.
Revenue Divisional Commissioner (Central) Anil Samal, who visited several parts of Bhadrak district, said standing crops in Chabdbali, Dhamra and Basudevpur areas suffered major damage.
As per initial reports, about 5,500 houses have been damaged and a detailed assessment will be done within a week, Jena said.
Power supply has been restored in most affected areas, and the task is expected to be completed by November 12, the officials said, adding, all the roads have been cleared of uprooted trees.
As many as 20 teams of the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF), six units of the NDRF and 226 fire services teams were pressed into service in the restoration operation, they added.
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Nitish likely to resign as Bihar CM after last meeting of cabinet on April 14
Patna (PTI): Bihar inched towards a political transition on Sunday with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar convening a meeting of his cabinet on April 14, following which the JD(U) president is likely to relinquish the post to make way for a BJP-led government.
According to a notification issued by the cabinet secretariat department, the meeting will take place at 11 am, after which the longest-serving CM of the state, who got elected to the Rajya Sabha last week, was expected to submit his resignation to Governor Syed Ata Hasnain.
Earlier, Kumar's close aide and JD(U) national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha had told reporters that the process of formation of a new government was likely to "roll out after April 13".
Meanwhile, the BJP, which has been approaching the prospect of having its first- ever chief minister in the state with considerable restraint, got down to business and named Shivraj Singh Chouhan as a "central observer", who would oversee the change of guard.
A statement issued by the BJP headquarters in Delhi said the parliamentary board has appointed Chouhan, a Union minister and a multiple-term former CM of Madhya Pradesh, as “central observer for electing the leader of legislature party in Bihar”.
Senior JD(U) leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, had said here earlier in the day "the new chief minister will be elected by the NDA, upon the recommendation of the BJP, which has a big role to play".
Speculations are doing the rounds that Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who holds the crucial Home portfolio in the outgoing government, is the frontrunner among contenders for the top job.
BJP leaders in the state, who have been making frantic visits to Delhi in the recent past, are keeping their cards close to the chest.
"Who will be the next CM is a decision to be taken by our central leadership," minister Dilip Jaiswal, who is a former state BJP president, had said a day ago, adding, "I am not at all in the race".
Other than Choudhary, who had joined the BJP less than a decade ago, those whose names are doing the rounds include Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai and state ministers Lakhendra Paswan and Shreyasi Singh.
According to BJP sources, all these leaders fit the bill in different ways. Choudhary is a ‘Koeri’, and his elevation could ensure that the ‘Luv Kush’ (Kurmi Koeri) equation nurtured by Kumar during his 20-year-rule remained intact in favour of the NDA, after the JD(U) supremo's departure.
Rai is a Yadav and brings the promise of support of the largest caste group in Bihar, which has been with Lalu Prasad's RJD, the BJP's principal rival in the state, for decades.
Paswan is a Dalit and his elevation could help the BJP transcend its "pro-upper caste" image, which brings its own disadvantages in the Hindi heartland, where the Mandal agitation of the 1990s has cast a long shadow, the sources said.
Singh, in her 30s, is an upper caste Rajput, but her elevation could be projected as the party giving preference to young blood.
Moreover, the party has also been trying to present itself as a champion of gender equality, by pushing through the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ that ensures 33 per cent reservation to women in both Houses of Parliament.
However, the BJP sources admitted that there was a strong possibility of the central leadership springing a "surprise", citing examples of many states ruled by the party, where less fancied leaders have landed the top job in the recent past.
Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, a Trinamool Congress MP who spent nearly three decades in the BJP, had said, while commenting on the political situation in Bihar that "we have plenty of deserving people here but we must be beware of a baba who may arrive with a parchi".
The allusion was to Rajasthan, where Bhajan Lal Sharma was named the chief minister two years ago at a legislature party meeting, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was seen on camera taking out a piece of paper with the name of the first-term MLA written on it.
