Drought and floods have no more remained the issues now. These ravages of nature which took heavy toll on the lives and property of people have been pushed to the backburner by the affidavit which seems to have provided the much food for thought for both the ruling party and opposition alike.

More than the dissident Congress leaders, it is the opposition which has perhaps left no stone unturned in exploiting the issue for mileage. And it is the same opposition which had all along been crying foul over the state Government's failure to check prices of essential commodities like potato and onion, ward off drought and tackle flood situation. It's affidavit which has remained the `real' issue for them.

And now it's time forDussehra. Even as numerous people of the state have been rendered homeless by floods and left starving by drought, the ruling Congress ministers have done a clean vanishing act by remaining absent from the Capital since long.

Absolutely there is no body in the government to monitor the relief measures. While several ministers including Patnaik are out to New Delhi on a damage control mission following Tripathy's revelations, the rest are away at their respective constituencies to smell and taste the puja flavour.

Sources believe that the long absence of ministers including the Revenue Minister Jagannath Patnaik is likely to affect drought and flood relief measures badly.

All of a sudden Bhubaneswar has turned into a city minus leaders, rallies, dharnas and gheraos. The opposition leaders, who did a whirlwind tour to different corners of the state to take stock of drought and flood situation, are no more interested to know whether the homeless have been provided with shelters and people arestarving. They are reportedly doing rounds in their constituencies to capitalise on the Tripathy's bombshell.

After all, for features like drought and floods are going to recur, not the kind of Tripathy's affidavit.