After the success of the September 6 rally and the padayatra this month, the State Congress now plans to organise meetings at the district headquarters as the next step towards preparing the party for 2014 elections.
The padayatras will be held in all the districts in the near future. The party will soon finalise the programme, general secretary of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Arjya Kumar Gyanendra said.
The eight-day ‘parivartan padayatra’ of the party led by OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik from Cuttack Swarajya Ashram to Sakshigopal from October 2 was a huge success and will be replicated in all districts, he said.
The main focus of the padayatras and meetings will be to make people aware as to how the State Government is trying to hijack schemes launched by the Centre and passing these off as its own. The latest being the slum development programme announced by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Gyanendra said.
The Chief Minister has announced free houses for the slum-dwellers as a part of the development programme, the Congress leader said and added that Centre had provided Rs 200 crore to the State for implementation of its project, ‘Slum Free India’. Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), an integrated slum development programme, was launched by the Centre last year, he said.
Since the urban body polls and general elections are round the corner, it’s a ploy of the Chief Minister to gain political mileage by claiming these as the State Government’s schemes, he added.
Congress will intensify the anti-Naveen campaign by giving details of the scams during the last 12 years of the BJD rule in the State. Besides, the rapidly deteriorating law and order situation in the State and rising atrocities against women would be the talking points of the party during the padayatras.
Meanwhile, Naveen had already embarked on his district tours.