Report: Odisha government uses dead policeman to control crowd ahead of PM Modi's visit

The list of Odisha government officials deployed for crowd control ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the state sparked controversy after it included the name of a deceased Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) officer. The state government mistakenly mentioned the name of late Prabodha Kumar Rout in the list of officials deployed during Prime Minister Modi's visit, Times of India reported.

After the erroneous list attracted attention on social media, the government quickly corrected its mistake and withdrew it. Later, the government replaced Rout's name with Subrat Kumar Jena, a land officer of the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation, Times of India reported, citing Chief Secretary Manoj Ahuja.

However, the major crowd control blunder sparked a massive uproar on social media. An opposition leader also questioned the security management ahead of Prime Minister Modi's visit. Biju Janata Dal (BJD) social media head Swayam Prakash Mohapatra criticised the government's order and called the blunder a “strange situation”.

“It is a very strange situation, a strange regime is in place. An officer who died a year ago was given the responsibility of crowd control during the Prime Minister's visit,” HT quoted Mohapatra as saying in a post on X.

Visit of Prime Minister Modi, Odisha

Prime Minister Modi will visit Odisha on September 17 to launch 'SUBHADRA', the state government's flagship project, in Bhubaneswar. The women-centric initiative was one of the BJP's key pre-election promises.

Under this program, all eligible women between the ages of 21 and 60 would ₹50,000 over a period of 5 years between 2024-25 and 2028-29.

“A lot ₹10,000/- per annum in two equal installments will be directly credited into the Aadhaar and DBT enabled bank account of the beneficiary. On this historic occasion, the Prime Minister will initiate transfer of funds into the bank accounts of more than 10 lakh women,” the PMO said.