Political parties of all hues here seem to have stepped up their activities before the 2014 elections. Meetings, rallies, gheraos and demonstrations have become very frequent in last few months.
The district unit of BJP declared a district Bandh last week condemning failure of the BJD Government in providing good governance.
It was followed by Congress’ call to the people to denounce the Naveen Patnaik Government for depriving the BPl households of their monthly due of PDS rice.
Congress national spokesperson and Kalahandi MP Bhakta Das, addressing a gathering of about 3,000 people at Boden, claimed that the BJD Government has denied the poor people their right to food as it has been unabashedly curtailing 10 kg rice from their quota of 35 kg allotted by the Centre. “The Congress Government is supplying 35 kg of rice per each BPl household. However, while distributing the rice, the State Government is curtailing 10 kg from the quota,” Das said. The MP also claimed that the State Government has been fooling the people for last 11 years by drumbeating about its success stories and spreading an anti-Centre propaganda.
“All the development activities undertaken here like Old Age Pension, Indira Awas, IAP, BRGF, MGNREGS and NRHM are run with the support of the Congress Government at the Centre, but the BJD Government has been taking credit for all them,” he said, while attending a rally and meeting at Sinapali block. Under the leadership of Kalahandi Parliament constituency president of Congress Adhiraj Panigrahi, rallies were conducted in Khariar and Nuapada blocks. The party unit had already collected thousands of complaint petitions from the BPl households of the district which were submitted in the respective police stations of the blocks.
The BJD, on the other hand, conducted meetings in different block headquarters of the district to condemn the Central Government’s apathy to the State in not according it special status.