Addressing election rallies at Sundargarh and Sonepur, BJP leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday once again came down heavily on both the BJD and the Congress.
Modi drew a comparison between the two parties and the BJP and alleged that both the BJD and the Congress have encouraged favouritism in terms of caste, religion and communities, keeping the entire eastern India far from development.
He said, “You have seen the works of Congress in the Centre during its decades-long leadership. You have also seen the BJD ruling Odisha for the last 19 years. And now, you have the BJP’s works (at the Centre) in front of you.
This ‘Chowkidar’ has pledged and taken the responsibility to build the entire eastern India as the ‘development engine’ of the new India.”
Attacking the BJD over farmer issues, coal and chit fund scams, unemployment, Modi asked the people whether they want to have an honest Government, which would ensure inclusive growth in the State as well as in the country, or a corrupt and inefficient Government.
He accused the BJD Government of not implementing the Central schemes. Had the Odisha Government’s intentions been honest, the farmers could have availed 1.5-times MSP announced by the Centre, 50 lakh farmers in Odisha would have availed benefits of PM-KISAN, crores of Central grants would not be lying unutilised, only eight lakh pucca house for poor would not have been built, the coal corridor holding ample job opportunities for youth would not have been languishing, Ayushman Bharat would have been in force in Odisha; the huge DMF corpus wouldn’t have remained unutilised. “Don’t you need to punish such a callous BJD Government?’ asked Modi.
He congratulated the workers of the BJP on the party’s 39th foundation day (April 6).
At Sonepur, Modi compared the town with Varanasi, saying both the places are famous for temples and sarees. He said due to unemployment the local youths are forced to migrate to big cities in search of livelihood.