BHUBANESWAR: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik received scorn from the Congress for his party's support to the NDA's presidential candidate, Ram Nath Kovind.
Following the announcement of support to Kovind's candidature, the Congress questioned the BJD's policy of maintaining equidistance from the BJP and Congress.
"The chief minister has no guts to object to the Prime Minister's direction. As soon as Narendra Modi called him, he (Naveen Patnaik) agreed to support the NDA candidate. Where is the BJD's equidistance policy?" leader of the opposition Narasingh said.
Naveen Patnaik also faced flak from within his own party. An Odia daily owned and edited by BJD MP Tathagat Satpathy questioned the party's decision in an editorial on Tuesday.
It warned that BJD's support for the BJP's candidate is likely to weaken its position.
However, the chief minister clarified that although his party supports the NDA's candidate, its fight against the central government's negligence of Odisha would continue.
Rejecting the opposition's criticism, Naveen Patnaik said, "The NDA candidate is a distinguished person from a Scheduled caste. This apart, the BJP supported our (BJD) candidate PA Sangma in the last presidential election."
Naveen went on to describe the BJP as a "communal" party and Congress as a "corrupt" one.