A day after holding agitation in front of the Bhubaneswar block office, three city BJD MlAs including Bijay Mohanty, Bhagirathi Badajena and Ashok Panda along with Bhubaneswar lok Sabha member Prasanna Patsani and district level party leaders on Tuesday staged a symbolic fast in front of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) reiterating their demand for Special Category State (SCS) status to Odisha.
Addressing a gathering, Bhubaneswar Central MlA Bijay Mohanty said, “Though one month has elapsed since we held the rally at Delhi, the Central Government has paid no heed to our demand fpr special tag forcing us to intensify our agitation.”
Noting that Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram had proposed changes in criteria for identifying a State to be accorded with Special Category State status, Mohanty said the State is yet to know about changes made in the criteria.
The BJD leaders also wanted to know the sub-committee which was set up to study the backwardness of States. The party had earlier submitted one crore signatures to the President of India supporting the BJD’s demand for the status to the State.