Odisha Agriculture Minister Pradeep Maharathy had mobilised huge crowd to prevent BJP from taking any mileage from the NHAI event, which was jointly inaugurated by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and CM Naveen Patnaik. There were BJD flags and photos of Naveen Patnaik all over the venue. Even Maharathy himself wore a BJD flag, which he had to remove following protests from BJP workers.
Maharathy even threatened Union Minister Nitin Gadkari of dire consequences in future for not publishing his name on Newspaper Ads. “Tumko Ye Future Me Bahut Bhari Padega”, he said. All expenses to promote Naveen Patnaik and BJD were spent from the government money. At one stage, the BJD and BJP workers came face to face, triggering an unpleasant situation. It was a complete mess, which lasted for one hour.
Four Laning of Bhubaneswar-Puri Section of NH-316 (Old NH 203) was dedicated to public by Nitin Gadkari and Naveen Patnaik in the presence of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Puri MP Pinaki Mishra, Bhubaneswar MP Prasanna Patasani and many others.