Bhubaneswar: As we are at the fag end of this year and would be stepping into a new year, let us retrospect and see who were the five personalities from Odisha who hogged the headlines and were Newsmakers for the right or wrong reasons this year.
Here is how and why we consider them to be Newsmakers@Odisha2022
Droupadi Murmu: The daughter of Odisha Droupadi Murmu, who was born into poverty in a Santhali home created history by becoming the first tribal woman to be the President of India. NDA’s Presidential candidate Murmu who was born in Uparbeda panchayat in Odisha’s underdeveloped district of Mayurbhanj won the presidential elections on 21st July this year by a thumping margin.
On taking oath on July 25 at the age of 64 she became the youngest President of India. She is also the first President who was born in independent India.
After taking oath as the 15th President of India, Murmu said, “Reaching the Presidential post is not my personal achievement, it is the achievement of every poor in India.”
While Murmu was NDA’s candidate for the Presidential elections, BJD president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was the first to extend his party’s full support for her.
Patnaik also went the extra mile to appeal MLAs of other parties to vote in her favour. Naveen’s support and appeal in favour of the tribal woman leader played a key role in Murmu’s election as the First Citizen.
Barsha Singh Bariha: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate for the Padampur bypoll Barsha Singh Bariha defeated her BJP opponent Pradip Purohit by a record margin of 42,679 votes.
BJD’s Bariha polled 1,20,807 (58 percent) votes, BJP candidate Pradip Purohit managed 78,128 (37.51 percent) votes, while Congress’ Satya Bhusan Sahu finished a distant third with only 3,594 (1.73 percent) votes.
This is the highest-ever margin that a candidate won in Padampur Assembly Constituency. Earlier in 1990, Barsha Singh Bariha’s father Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha had defeated Satya Bhushan Sahu of the Congress with a margin of 30410 votes.
Retaining the seat was crucial for the BJD, especially after the party lost the Dhamnagar bypoll to the BJP last month, which was its first defeat in any by-election since 2008.
Tula Behera: An elderly beggar woman Tula Behera donated her entire savings worth Rs 1 lakh for the repair and renovation of the Shree Jagannath temple in the district headquarters town of Phulbani in Kandhamal district.
She handed over the money to the managing committee of the Shree Jagannath temple on 16th December on the occasion of Dhanu Shankranti. She had saved the amount over a period of 10 years in her post office savings account.
Tula, who is aged about 70, used to beg in front of the Shree Jagannath temple in Phulbani town, to sustain herself. A native of Cuttack, Tula was forced to beg after the death of her husband Prafulla Behera who hails from Kandhamal.
Both used to work as labourers in Cuttack for their livelihood. Later as Prafulla developed some serious health complications both of them returned to Phulbani town.
Tula started working as a domestic help and continued to support the family. They had no issue. She took to begging for a living after her husband passed away.
Siddhi Samriddhi: Fifteen-year-old Siddhi Samriddhi of Berhampur in her death on May 17 this year saved two lives.
While one of her kidneys was transplanted in a patient undergoing treatment at SCB Medical College & Hospital in Cuttack, another was transplanted in a patient undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospital in Bhubaneswar.
Siddhi, a student of De Paul School, Berhampur suddenly fell ill after complaining of a headache on May 14. Her parents Sapan Kumar Bindhani and mother Dr Sunita Pradhan first got her treated at Berhampur and as her condition deteriorated shifted her to Sum Ultimate Hospital at Bhubaneswar for better treatment.
Attending doctors after conducting ultrasonography of her brain found that there was a serious problem in it and she would survive for a few hours.
Crestfallen that their child would be living for a few hours, Sapan and Dr Sunita decided to donate her organs so that the lives of other patients could be saved. As her brain was damaged, only her two kidneys and no other organs could be harvested for transplantation while she was alive.
She has given a fresh lease of life to two persons from Rourkela and Kendrapara with her kidneys transplanted into them.
Archana Nag: Archana Nag: Police arrested Archana Nag and her husband Jagabandhu Chand on 6th and 20th of October respectively for allegedly amassing wealth by blackmailing prominent people and presently both are in judicial custody.
Archana and Jagabandhu are accused of acquiring and generating properties worth crores of rupees through extortion by way of honey-trapping high profile and rich people and secretly making their inappropriate videos and threatening and blackmailing them for lodging false police cases against them and making viral of their inappropriate videos in social media.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Archana, Jagabandhu and their associates Khageswar Patra and Shradhanjali Behera.
The Central agency has interrogated several eminent personalities including film producer Akshay Parija, filmmaker Pramod Swain, businessman Amiyakant Das, BJD MLA Sudhir Samal’s brother Gangadhar Samal, property dealer Prabhat Ranjan Pati, hotelier Siba Prasad Das and architect Ranjit Behera.
