Residents of Sambalpur are unhappy in the wake of the formation of the new Ministry led by Naveen Patnaik.

They had expected that someone from the district would be a Minister as two MLAs from the BJD have been elected this time. But nothing of that sort happened.

Naveen Patnaik has taken five Ministers from western Odisha with important portfolios like Naba Kishore Das, Niranjan Pujari, Susanta Singh, Tukuni Sahu and Dibya

Shankar Mishra. But exclusion of Sambalpur has saddened people here as he has been giving importance to Sambalpur and its development.

But different comments are coming from BJD workers to political observers particularly on the matter of non-inclusion of Sambalpurin the Ministry due to defeat of Dr Raseswari Panigrahi.

One Gurjinder Kaur Dingra said there are many eye-catching development works in the Sambalpur constituency including a planetarium, second Mahanadi bridge, a ropeway in Hirakud dam, IIM, Open University and so many others. Still then, voters disappointed the BJD both in the Assembly and Parliament polls in Sambalpur.

“Whereas the years from 2000 to 2014 were a dark period with no development works, from 2014 to 2019, Sambalpur saw fast development but the people elected the BJP from here,” said Dingra.

She also recalled the service of Raseswari Panigrahi during the last year’s rains and floods.

But all this couldn’t be converted to votes that might have enraged the party supremo, assume political observers.

It is also alleged that some BJD leaders of the district worked against Dr Panigrahi to ensure her defeat which has come to Patnaikk’s knowledge.s