The Opposition Congress on Wednesday slammed the 14-year BJD regime as governance of betrayal, all-round failure, corruption and scams and dared Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to step down owning responsibility and face elections under President’s rule to prove his transparency and popularity.
Participating in a debate on the no-confidence motion against the Council of Ministers moved by the party, the Congress members alleged that there had been large-scale corruption, scams, deteriorating law and order and rising incidence of atrocities on women during BJD Government’s14 years rule in Odisha.
After a five-hour debate, the motion was lost by 26-95 votes as Chief Minister Patnaik dubbed it as demonstration of “intellectual bankruptcy” on the part of the Congress. Interestingly, the Opposition BJP, which supported the Congress-sponsored motion, preferred to stage a walkout before the Chief Minister’s reply.
Earlier in the debate, rebutting the Congress, the Treasury Bench members said the no-confidence motion had no base when the Congress party had been rejected by the people of the State in the successive elections whether it was the three-tier Panchyati Raj polls, Urban body polls or Assembly and Parliament elections since 2000.
The No-Confidence Motion against the Naveen Patnaik Government was moved by Opposition Congress Chief Whip Prasad Harichandan and was discussed in the House for five long hours. The motion had the support of the Opposition BJP. Initiating a debate on the motion, Harichandan alleged that the State Government was involved in a series of multi-crore scams including mining scam, chit fund scam, dal scam, MGNRES scam and the coal scam.
The law and ordered situation has deteriorated significantly and the incidence of rape, gang-rape, and bank loots increased manifold. The criminals are moving with guns in villages. The number of rape cases has gone up to 1,816 now from 1,116 in 2011, he charged.
The Congress leader said as per a report made by three eminent economists, the State figured in the second position from the bottom in the list of the developed States of the country as far as the development indicator is concerned. Poverty increased during the BJD rule, he said. The senior Congress law maker said though the Government had promised job to every youth but on the contrary, as many as 25 lakh youths were migrating in search of job to other States every year.
He said during the BJD rule, incidence of starvation deaths, farmer suicide, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate and unemployment and per-capita loan amount increased. Stating that Odisha has received as many as Rs 52,000 crore grants from the UPA Government since 2009 against the Rs 7,900 crore during NDA rule, Harichandan said that instead of informing the people about the Central grants, the BJD Government had been raising the Central neglect issue on political grounds so as to defame Congress.
Even though the CAG had indicted the Government on land deal and large-scale irregularity, the Chief Minister suppressed the CAG report and is not laying it in the Assembly for fear of being exposed, he said. leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh, Prafula Majhi and a number of his party members participated in the debate.