BJD’s crocodile tear

NOSTALGIA

Odisha is looking back her great son today. It is this unforgettable date written in the annals of my state with golden letters. Premiere builder of separate Odisha, Gajapati Krushna Chandra Dev’s birth day falls today. Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati Narayan Dev, the scion of the great Ganga Dynasty of Parlakhemundi, was born on 26 April 1892 to the king of Parlakhemundi Shri Goura Chandra Gajapati and Smt. Radhamani Devi. Shri Gajapathi received his elementary education at the local Maharaja High School of Paralakhemundi and then entered the exclusive Newington College in Madras for higher studies. During his studies in Madras, he lost his father Shri Goura Chandra Gajapati. After completing his studies at Madras he returned to Paralakhemundi and in the year 1913 married the princess of Kharasuan State. In the same year he held the reign of the State on 26 April 1913. Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati was the pivot of the Odia movement for the formation of an Independent Odisha state on the basis of Language and homogeneity. He spent extensively from his royal treasury to materialize this effort.  He demanded a separate Odisha state with an amalgamation of Odia speaking areas in the then Orissa-Bihar-Bengal province. This proposal was approved In the Bihar-Orissa Legislative Assembly. As a member of Utkala Sammilani he put forward the proposal of a separate Odisha state in the first Round Table Meet held in London on 16 November 1930. Finally, with the effort of Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati and Utkala Sammilani the separate state of United Odisha was formed on 1 April 1936. He was instrumental in the establishment of Utkal University, Shri Ram Chandra Bhanj Medical College and also the famous Central Rice Research Institute in Bidyadharpur, Cuttack, which is one of the largest of its kind in Asia. He set up many hospitals, schools, colleges, industrial institutions and modern agricultural farms and provided a record number of 1281 irrigation sagars or water-tanks in his agriculturally dominant native taluk. For this reason, the undivided Ganjam District was given the title ‘the rice-bowl of Odisha’. Under Gajapati, scholarships were awarded to thousands of poor and meritorious students in humanities, science, agriculture, medicine, and engineering, among others. Hats off for the great architect of our motherland, Gajapati Krushna Chandra Dev. Jay Odisha. Jay Jagannath.