The State Government and the Centre are misleading people by making hollow promises. Both are spending a huge amount straining the public exchequer for this purpose, said PCC president Niranjan Patnaik on Saturday while addressing mediapersons here in the wake of the Congress’ Jagran Yatra.
In first leg of his party tour to the district, the party besides holding meeting at several places of Baleswar, also interacted with the intellectuals of the district in an open session on Thursday evening.
Former Union Minister Srikant Jena and senior party functionaries, including Chiranjeevi Biswal, Debasis Patnaik, Satyaprakash Nayak , former MLA Chitta Sarangi, district president Sarat Raj, Sanjeev Giri and Satya Mohanty were among others present in the meeting.
Patnaik, besides stating that Congress due to its past mistakes was rejected by the people, said they were trying to rectify those by meeting people directly.
“Due to past mistakes, the party is punished enough. We are touching people by going to them and trying to understand their problems. Those issues would be reflected in the election manifesto. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik despite ruling the State for last 18 years is still unreachable to the common people,” Patnaik said.
“The unemployment is at its peak. Neither new industry nor ancillary units for mother industries are established. The teachers are dissatisfied with low pay gradation. The farmer is not getting justice. The advocates are on strike for months paralyzing the legal system,” he said, adding, “The BJD Government has formed Biju Bahini and will be recruiting 15,000 youths with remuneration between Rs 8,000-Rs 40,000. The selection procedure is not fair and no reservation policy for different categories of people. The mass would be only protecting party interest with the money from the state exchequer.”
He charged that the Central Government was doing nothing to control the price of essential commodities, fall of rupee against dollar and sky rocketing price of petrol and diesel.