Tathagata Satpathy

Tathagata Satpathy (born 1 April 1956) was a member of the 12th, 14th, 15th and 16th Lok Sabha of India. He represented the Dhenkanal constituency of Odisha, and was re-elected for the fourth time in 2014. He was a member of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) political party, and the party's chief whip in the Lok Sabha. He took voluntary retirement from politics in March 2019.

Quotes

• A hungry man is an angry man.
  • Quoting Bob Marley, he argued that working children should be given incentives to join school, as quoted in "Education right scales last big peak" Calcutta Telegraph (5 August 2009)

• We have never said that Bengal should not be given funds but Odisha should be treated equally.
  • Claiming that UPA government was favouring West Bengal over Odisha, as quoted in "Odisha MPs see Bengal bias" Calcutta Telegraph (13 December 2014)

• Let's be totally intolerant towards intolerance.
  • On the 2015 Dadri mob lynching incident, as quoted in "Oppn raises 'intolerance' issue in LS" Business Standard (26 November 2015)

• Just because we do not speak Hindi does not mean we are not Indians.
  • On the proposal that Hindi be made the national language, as quoted "Is 'secularism' really being misused?" Business Standard (27 November 2015)

• I am not judging them, but they are judging the House. Decrying the NJAC Act, it is a slap on the face of the people. It is a very sad event.
  • After the Supreme Court declared the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act (NJAC Act) to be unconstitutional, as quoted "LS members disapprove Supreme Court's scrapping of NJAC law" Business Standard (7 December 2015)

• In the villages of my constituency, old people, venerable people used to smoke marijuana. Today, by imposing ban on natural substances, which people have been using for ages, from the time of Shiva, we have actually forced a lot of these people to move on to alcohol.
  • Criticising the ban on marijuana, as quoted in "Tathagata Satpathy: the MP who doesn't mind stirring the pot" Business Standard (19 December 2015)

• I am heartbroken to say that the youth of the country doesn’t deserve us. I am here to hear who has a word of solace and point of solution of the problems that the nation is facing. Is it only votes that matter? Is it just us and them? Are we not simplifying matters by breaking up the country in two parts—us and them?
  • In a Lok Sabha speech, on the death of Rohith Vemula and the JNU sedition debate, as quoted in "Stormy debate deepens divide in Parliament" Live Mint (25 February 2015)

• It has been showcased as a tool exclusively meant for disbursement of subsidies and we do not realise that it can also be used for mass surveillance. Can the government ... assure us that this Aadhaar card and the data that will be collected under it – biometric, biological, iris scan, finger print, everything put together – will not be misused as has been done by the NSA in the U.S.?
  • On the Aadhaar project, as quoted in "India's billion-member Aadhaar biometric database raises privacy fears" Reuters (16 March 2016)