Lalit Patnaik's report on the Sambalpur rally

Dear Friends,
I have just returned from Sambalpur. Intellectuals of Sambalpur and Students of UCE, Burla and local colleges made a grand show of strength, walking down the main street from GM college to Collectorate via Laxmi Talkies and Gol Bazar. The air was filled with voice of Swabhimani Odia; WE WANT IIT IN ORISSA. The other slogan was; Odia pua ekk hua. The most shouted slogan was 50 years old UCE, Burla deserves to be an IIEST like other Old colleges of Bengal, AP and Kerala. There were so many slogans.

Around 400 intellectuals and students assembled sharp at 5 PM, near GM College. Rally started at 5. 10 Pm and initially the people of Sambalpur were surprised and wanted to know exactly what it is. Leaflets were distributed by the students and whoever read it, joined the rally. Passer by stopped and raised their hand in support. The roof top people waved their hand at the rally. What a support. The rally was a instant success by the time it reached Laxmi Talkies. Police immediately sprang in to action and gave one way to the rally. By the time it reached Gol bazar the rally has already swelled to more than 1000 persons.

Collector was waiting to receive the Memorandum. He not only assured to send the Memorandum immediately to Govt of India but also discussed at length with the rally leaders( Surendra Lath(MP), P Acharya(MP), Er.Ashesh Padhi, Er. Deba Mishra, Er.Dinesh Pattnaik, Dr.Namita Pattnaik, Wonder kid Bhudhia and student leaders . Out side the Collectorate the slogan continued for 1 hour till the leaders came out of the meeting. After the meeting the Collector was kind enough to come down the stairs and wanted to meet representatives of Agamee Odisha from Bhubaneswar. Dr Santosh Tripathy, Student Leader UU Shri Prasanta , myself ,Swagata & Namita were just happy to interact with him. He expressed his sincere good wishes to our demand and promised us to give land, without any delay, to all prospective Organisations or Persons , who wants to open a Technical institute in that region. He also said that he has earmarked very good patch of land for that purpose. We thanked him and came back. Any body interested may contact him on telephone or in person.

The Sambalpur Rally was of high pitch and convinced us that Intellectuals and students are no more going to accept unjust to their motherland. All leading papers have covered it on front page on 29th April.

Kuddo to Er Ashesh Padhi, Er Dinesh Pattnaik, Er Deba Mishra, All students & all Sambalpur people for showing their strength and raising their voice in unision for the cause of Orissa.

Yours,
Lalit Pattnaik