The ruling BJD and the BJP have locked horns for the panchayat elections to be held in next three months.
BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has chosen to launch a tirade against the Centre, which is his old tactic over the last 17 years, to woo the electorate this time, while the BJP’s campaign led by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan blasts the State Government for ‘inefficiency’ in using Central funds for development of Odisha.
In the BJD’s Jansampark Padayatra which is underway, the MlAs and leaders are facing anger of the people at many places, signaling an undercurrent of frustration against the ruling dispensation in the State. Yet, the party supremo is vigorously attacking the Centre for neglecting Odisha, besides on the most sensitive issues of Polavaram and Mahanadi.
While BJD has been slamming the Centre for constant fund cuts on State shares, sitting on revision of coal royalty, discontinuation of several schemes, Patnaik during his recent rallies spewed venom against the Modi Government for taking a biased stand against Odisha on the Polavaram dam by Andhra Pradesh and a series of barrages by Chattisgarh on the Mahanadi river. The BJD leaders have taken the same stand all across the State during the padayatra.
On the contrary, the BJP under the leadership of Petroleum Minister Pradhan has gone for a tit-for-tat. Recently, addressing rallies in Angul’s Pallahara and Rasalpur in Baleswar district while distributing the cooking gas to the poor people under the Ujjwala scheme of the Central Government, Pradhan has hit out at the BJD Government for inertia and inefficiency. He accused that while the Centre has been providing enough funds under several schemes for the development of Odisha, especially for the poor villagers, the State Government is not properly implementing them and is rather preventing the flow of funds to the grassroots level.
Pradhan has taken potshots at the State Government for irregularities in the selection of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), falsely taking credit in the rice scheme and inefficiency to credit subsidy money in BPl rice to the account of the beneficiaries.
Earlier, Pradhan had criticized the BJD Government on a host of issues like the Sishu Bhwan child death, Nabakalebar fiasco, Nagada malnutrition deaths, Japanese Encephalitis deaths in Malkangiri, Mahanadi barrage dispute with Chhatisgarh and Sum Hospital blaze.