Opposition INDIA bloc parties enforced a 12-hour statewide bandh in Odisha on October 8, 2026, beginning at 6 am. The shutdown was backed by the Congress, CPI, CPI(M), CPI(ML) Liberation, Forward Bloc, NCP (Sharad Pawar), Samajwadi Party, RJD and JMM. The protesters demand full repeal of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, which they say threatens the state’s mineral wealth. They also want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to resign over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
A third demand is the resignation of School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond over errors in school textbooks. Shops, petrol pumps and many educational institutions stayed shut in the morning, and buses and autorickshaws largely kept off the roads, leaving commuters stranded in several places. Protesters blocked roads and national highways in towns including Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Balasore, Berhampur and Sambalpur, picketed junctions and burnt tyres. Hospitals, ambulances, fire services, medicine shops and milk supply were exempted.
Police said adequate security had been arranged and that officials had talked to stakeholders to keep the protest within constitutional limits. The bandh follows the BJD’s separate march against the same mining law and a Congress rally in Bhubaneswar where the date was announced. It shows the opposition in the state converging on a single set of grievances against the BJP government.