The BJP and the BJD were again at loggerheads on Wednesday over the removal of BJP flags and hoardings of national president Amit Shah from near the Kalinga Stadium and other no-hoarding zones in the city by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) before the inaugural ceremony of the Asian Athletics Championships.
The BJP workers had a heated altercation with BMC officials while they were pulling down the hoardings near the stadium triggering tension at the spot. They hijacked four BMC vehicles carrying the posters and flags and took them to their party office.
The BMC’s move was criticised by the BJP, which said it as a sign of the BJD’s intolerance. “The act is highly condemnable. Being intolerant over the BJP’s growing popularity in the State, the BJD Government forced the BMC officials to remove the hoardings of Amit Shah. It is unfortunate that banners and hoardings were pulled down at a time when Shah is on a visit to the State,” a BJP activist said.
“If this was to be done, we could have been informed earlier. We would have removed the hoardings on our own. But what led them to act on it during Shah’s visitIJ” he questioned.
However, BJD MP Pratap Keshari Deb said that only some hoardings on the road from the airport to the Kalinga Stadium were removed. The Asian Athletics Championships is a prestige issue for the State. It does not belong to any particular party. Is the BJP’s interests above the interests of Odisha, Deb questioned.