Bhubaneswar, Jan. 22: The announcement of the national tiger census figures showing a fall in Odisha's big cat population has pitted the state government against the Centre while triggering a war of words between the BJD and the Opposition parties.

Protesting against the results of the survey that put the number of tigers in the state at 28, an alarming drop considering the fact that Odisha had 192 tigers in 2004, principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) S.S. Srivastava today shot off a letter to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) demanding a re-examination of the counting process.

"The results were announced on January 20 while the counting exercise in the final phase of the survey was still on in the state. They must re-examine the whole thing, so that more convincing figures emerge," said Srivastava, who has despatched copies of the letter to the Union ministry of environment and forests and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which carried out the survey on behalf of the NTCA.

Significantly, while in the case of MadhyaPradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, the NTCA acknowledged that the tiger counting exercise in these states was still going on, it did not do so in case of Odisha - which the officials here found strange.

"Had they done so, we may not have objected, but this is unacceptable," said Srivastava, while saying that the state had earlier also expressed reservations against the camera-trap method adopted by the Centre for animal counting. The state used to follow the pugmark method for tiger census till 2004, but the Centre introduced the camera-trap technique in 2006, asserting that it was more reliable.

However, irrespective of the counting technique, Srivastava finds the figure of 28 hard to accept. "We have more than 200 cameras in the forests, and there is constant monitoring of animal movement. We also keep getting feedbacks. The number of tigers in the state should not be less than 40," he said, discounting speculation about poaching of the big cats in Odisha forests.

The controversy triggered by the census results appears to have turned politicians into tiger experts overnight with Opposition party leaders ready to measure swords with the BJD members.

Former Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik was one of the first to launch a broadside at the state government, accusing it of failing to protect not only wildlife, but also ecological balance.

"The government has failed to stop poaching of not only tigers, but also its prey, and with rampant cutting of trees and illegal mining, tigers are becoming extinct from the state," he said.

"It seems that Naveen babu will only wake up when elephants come calling at the secretariat or Naveen Nivas," he added.

Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra mirrored the same sentiments.

While BJD spokesperson Amar Satpathy sought to defend the state government questioning the WII's technique of counting which, he said, had created an erroneous impression of tiger population falling in Odisha, veteran BJP leader Biswa Bhushan Harichandan said: "If they are disputing the Centre's figures, let them come out with facts. They are only trying to mislead the people of the state," he said.