Oram's statement confirms Odisha BJP's displeasure

Joel Oram, one of the senior most tribal leaders in the BJP and an MP from Sundergarh Lok Sabha constituency in western Odisha, said that he felt sad when he was overlooked by the party during the Cabinet formation at the Centre.

“It's the prerogative of the prime minister whom to pick and whom not to pick. But I certainly felt sad when I was overlooked for a ministerial berth”, Oram who was a minister with a Cabinet rank during the previous NDA regime said at a public meeting in the steel township of Rourkela, which is part of Sundergarh constituency.

He was speaking at a gathering which felicitated him for his second consecutive victory in the Lok Sabha polls. The senior tribal leader was the only BJP candidate to win the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Odisha.

Oram also admitted that he had intentionally not attended the swearing-in ceremony of the Modi Cabinet. “I absented myself from the swearing-in ceremony on the advice of my wife”, he said.

The senior BJP leader’s public utterances confirmed the media reports that said that state leaders of the saffron party in Odisha were unhappy and dissatisfied with the party high command’s “negligence” towards the state vis-à-vis formation of the new central Cabinet.

Two from Odisha— Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan, a Rajya Sabha member were inducted in the previous Modi Cabinet though BJP had won only one Lok Sabha seat in the state in 2014.

This time the saffron party managed to improve its tally to eight. Therefore, the party leaders in the state were expecting at least three berths— Pradhan, Oram and a new entrant from north-coastal Odisha.

The party leadership retained Pradhan, inducted a fresh face Pratap Sarangi, who had won the polls from north Odisha's Balasore Lok Sabha constituency, and omitted Oram.

What irked the state party leaders most was the central leadership’s decision to completely overlook the claim of western Odisha, where the BJP had managed to capture all the four Parliamentary seats.