BYJD slams Odisha BJP Leaders, asks them to raise Voice for State

Bhubaneswar, Sep 25: The ruling BJD has asked the BJP leaders of state to speak aloud in the larger interest of Odisha and Odia people. Bijay Nayak, General Secretary and spokesperson of BYJD, a youth wing of BJD, while launching an attack on Dhramendra Pradhan and Bijoy Mohapatra, said, “the state BJP leaders were talking high about Modi government and often criticising the BJD government of Odisha. They should know that their criticism against the BJD has been rejected by the people of Odisha in elections”.

He alleged that both leaders are competing with each other to deride Chef Minister Naveen Patnaik, who is a popular leader of Odisha and proved his mettle in all elections in the last decade. “They have no moral right to criticise the Naveen government’s development work, those earned immense praise from many quarters including United Nations and Central government as well”, he added.

Nayak accused the Modi government of ignoring the interest of people of Odisha and not sanctioning a single rupee for KBK regions, the most backward region of the county. The central government has also stopped the funding of Rs. 20 crore each to 10 KBK districts under Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) from this year, he alleged.

He said the Modi government had announced a special package of Rs.1.65 lakh crore for Bihar, as the state is gearing up for assembly elections. The central government had given financial assistance of Rs. 4,403 crore to Andhra Pradesh as the ruling TDP is an NDA ally. He took strong exception to the central government sanctioning Rs 350 crore for the Polavaram project although the matter is sub-judice in the Supreme Court.

“Odisha has been demanding a special category status for the last 15 years, Modi government has not been paying any heed, he said. The Modi government did not consider the Raghuram Committee recommendations, which advocated special category status to Odisha”, he said. Nayak also questioned  the exclusion of Odisha from the Modi’s ambitious ‘Make In India’ progamme.