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Gomango discusses ministry formation with Sonia

Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gomango said today that he has called for brief notes from every department to know how the state administration was maintaining coordination with the Centre.

''Unless I know what is the position, how can I fix priorities,'' he said while addressing his first press conference in New Delhi.

Gomango, who arrived in the capital to attend the National Development Council meeting, called on President K R Narayanan and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He described these meetings as ''courtesy calls''.

He also spent nearly five hours with party president Sonia Gandhi last night. The chief minister is believed to have discussed the constitution of his ministry and related matters with her.

The chief minister, however, declined to discuss about it with the press, asserting that it is an ''internal affair of the party''.

Replying to questions, he clarified that his statement regarding ''reviewing'' all MoUs entered into by the Orissa government and multinationals and the private sector was not in the negative sense. ''All I said was that rehabilitation clause should be there in each and every MoU as a large number of tribals will be displaced due to developmental projects.''

When a correspondent wanted to know what he will do as ''tribal chief minister'' for the upliftment of the tribals of the state, Gomango said, ''A chief minister is a chief minister. It so happened that I belong to that community.''

''I should not behave like a tribal,'' he added.

His thrust will be on special programmes in the social development sector. ''Ensuring peace of mind and tranquillity will be the other subject upper most in my mind,'' he added.

The chief minister does not feel that there was any failure on the part of the administration in preventing the heinous murder of an Australian missionary and his two minor children in Keonjhar district recently. Expressing regret for what had happened, Gomango said such things should not have happened in Orissa. ''Here there is no differences on the basis of caste, creed and religion. It is a continuing process of something that erupts suddenly. We have to ensure that such things are not repeated.''

The chief minister said there was improvement in the law and order situation in the state on the basis of action taken in time by the government.

UNI

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