Hotels in Rourkela deny space for OJM meet

The first-ever attempt of the Odisha Jana Morch (OJM), floated by Pyarimohan Mohapatra to reach out to people in Sundargarh district, ended in a fiasco.

The OJM vice-chairman and HMS national vice-president, RP Singh, was on Saturday noon denied space in at least three hotels to hold its scheduled interaction with local mediapersons.

Singh, the ex-MLA from Cuttack, accused the ruling party leaders, including  Minister Subrat Tarai, of “undemocratically” using the police and administrative machinery to scuttle his scheduled programme.

Singh said the get-together was to announce OJM’s support to the upcoming nation-wide strike on February 20 and 21 of the Central trade unions against the anti-worker and anti-poor policies of the UPA-II Government. He said it had nothing to do with the BJD Government. “Panicked, the BJD leaders stooped to the extent of using police to terrorise hotel owners,” he alleged.

Sources said managements of all the three hotels denied them space citing different reasons.

Singh said the OJM would continue to work to reach the membership target of 20,000 from the district by year-end.