The first month of Mohan Majhi's government

 Little more than a month since a new government took office after 24 years in Odisha, my home state back home. The first 100 days of any marriage is called as the Honeymoon period. The couples don't tend to judge each other as they are busy exploring themselves. This phase usually lasts from 3 to 6 months. Eventually familiarity starts  breeding contempt as reality strikes. 

Same goes with public life and politics. A new face and a new government carries the burden of hopes and aspirations along with unbridled expectations. As the new CM of Odisha from BJP and his team don't carry any prior baggage and come fresh from the oven after 24 years of same old, same old people gone stale over the time, I would give them an extended honeymoon period of more than 6 months until end of this year.  

But one positive step taken by Mohan Majhi, the newly elected CM of Odisha is meeting with the general public to listen to their grievance. People from far and wide, nook and corner of Odisha are coming down to Bhubaneswar to meet the Chief Minister with their complains filled with general apathy from government. Mr. Mohan Majhi gives them a patience hearing. His predecessor Naveen Patnaik, though a thorough gentleman, was elitist type who hardly reached out to commoners, creating a mystic aura and enigma surrounding him. The Chief Minister's grievance cell during the previous administration was lying defunct for several years. So this is a step in the right direction by Mohan Majhi's government. 

But at the same time it seems weird to me that the colors of Laxmi Bus, a brain child of previous BJD government is being changed from Green to Saffron. Doesn't make any sense. What's the point of doing that ? Does the common man who travels by bus really cares about the color of the bus ? What a collosal wastage of government money ! BJP's party bigwigs who could be pulling strings from center should understand that Odisha is neither a communal, nor a saffron state. They simply voted AGAINST Pandian, not FOR BJP. So any kind of saffron painting will hardly help, could rather backfire. They better focus on cleaning the mess left from the previous government rather than wasting time, money and effort to change the color of buses.