The Rajya Sabha member and Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM) president Pyarimohan Mohapatra on Friday criticised Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for endorsing the name of sculptor Padmabhushan Raghunath Mohapatra as the BJD’s fourth candidate for the ensuing Rajya Sabha elections.
“If the Chief Minister was so keen to send the sculptor to the Rajya Sabha, he should have endorsed the artist’s name for any of the top three seats of the party,” Mohaptra said,
adding that the regional party has enough strength in the State Assembly to send any three persons to the Upper House without the help of other parties.
Terming Patnaik’s move as “drama”, Mohapatra wondered as to from when Patnaik developed this adulation for artists of the State.
“Why this artistic sensibility developed after 14 long years,” Mohapatra asked while addressing newsmen here after releasing his party manifesto for next month’s civic body elections.
Mohapatra said that after carefully evaluating the party’s strength in Cuttack city, OJM has decided to field candidates in only 22 wards and expressed the hope that people of Cuttack would give an opportunity to the newly formed party to serve them.
“Our sincerity, efficiency, compassion and friendliness towards the people will help us to get votes in Cuttack,” he said.
The OJM is testing political waters for the first time in the State in Cuttack after it was formed last year and allotted the party symbol ‘Kite’ by the Election Commission of India late last month.
The OJM was not allowed to contest the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections on party symbol held on January 8.
later, the OJM formally launched the campaign for its candidates from the Gaurishankar Park in the presence of senior party leaders Rajendra Prasad Singh, secretary general Jagneswar Babu, vice-presidents Sarat Mishra, Dibyasingha Mishra and Mihir Mohanty.