Rout logs on to facebook

BHUBANESWAR: Former minister and dissident BJD leader Damodar Rout has now turned to social networking site Facebook to take his point of view to a wider mass, mostly the urban middle class people.Rout, who opened his account in the site only a few days back, has close to 100 friends.The former minister is not the only politician from the State to have joined Facebook.Two BJD MPs __ Kalikesh Singhdeo and Baijayant Panda __ are in Facebook with a large number of friends.Similarly, former minister Ranendra Pratap Swain, BJP national general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan, State unit president Jual Oram and former president Suresh Pujari also have their accounts.Congress politicians too do not lag behind.Senior Congress leader and Orissa incharge Jagdish Tytler, party MP Bhakta Charan Das and several others have gone the social networking way to keep in touch with people.Several other politicians, including Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and party strategist Pyarimohan Mohapatra, have logged on to social networking sites.Rout, however, said that he had not opened the account in the networking site and some followers may have opened it.The former minister maintained that he did not have any intention to field candidates in the panchayat polls.Biju Bichar Manch is not a political party, it is an apolitical forum to strengthen the hands of Naveen Patnaik, he reiterated.