Ahead of the prestigious Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation polls, senior Congress leader and Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Srikant Jena on Tuesday castigated BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik virtually terming him a ‘liar’ while accusing him of hoodwinking people on Central funds.
“I must give you credit for tactfully showcasing the UPA Government’s enormous ‘assistance’ as ‘negligence’. This was most aptly demonstrated by your State Government ‘s blatant lie on the floor of the Odisha State Assembly on the ‘non’ disbursement of Central funds towards cyclone Phailin and flood relief. It seems that your have carefully mastered the art and science of marketing lies,” Jena mentioned this in a letter to the Chief Minster on Tuesday.
Jena also invited Patnaik to prove his ‘strain-on-image’ statement wrong. “If you can refute this, please come for a one-to-one debate in any language and place of your choice during the urban body elections in Bhubaneswar.”
In the letter, Jena raised five important issues, which mostly concerns the city residents and will be the factors for political parties for grabbing votes during the January 8 BMC polls, for a debate. He said whatever facilities, be it land, electricity, health, education or urban infrastructure, the capital denizens are enjoying have been possible due to the Central Assistance. He named Rajiv Awas Yojana for providing houses to slum dwellers, AIIMS, NRHM, ESIC for health services, and Central Government-run IIT and NISER for research and higher studies. Jena blamed Patnaik for the residents are giving high prices for electricity. The private electricity companies owe thousands of crores of rupees to the GRIDCO, which, otherwise, costs the poor consumers of the State.