Bhubaneswar: When senior BJP leader Jaynarayan Mishra raised voice for formation of separate Kosali state, Opposition BJD today demanded reorganization for Kosali language, mostly spoken in western Odisha.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Assembly today, BJD Deputy Leader Prasanna Kumar Acharya urged the State government to grant Kosali the status of a state language and recommend its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution to the Central government.
Shri Acharya said that Kosali has a rich literary heritage, with numerous stories and poems, and is spoken by 1.5 crore people in eleven districts of Western Odisha.
Shri Acharya, who hails from Western Odisha, warned that the State government might face public outrage from these districts if it continues to ignore the demand to recognize Kosali as a state language.
He emphasized that Kosali meets all the necessary criteria for being declared a state language, yet it continues to be overlooked.
Shri Acharya urged the BJP government to recommend its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, pointing out that several other languages without distinct scripts have already been included in the past.
Another BJD MLA Dibyashankar Mishra too raised the demand in the House during Zero Hour.
Notably, while addressing a government function in Sambalpur recently, Mishra said merger of Koshala during the formation of Odisha was a historical blunder.
Odisha was formed with the merger of three regions — Utkal that comprised the coastal region, Kalinga in the south, and Koshala in the west.