BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of the winter session of the Odisha Assembly, the state BJP on Monday upped the ante over the farmers' issue by attempting to barge into the state secretariat to meet chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
Scores of senior leaders of the party and activists of the Krushak Morcha were taken into custody after a face-off with police near Rabindra Mandap. Though the BJP activists shouting anti-government slogans broke two police barricades during their march to the secretariat, security forces successfully prevented their move by using minimum force.
Slamming the state government for trying to crush the BJP movement by use of police force, party's state president Basanta Panda said his party will continue its fight against the anti-farmers policy and apathy of the state government towards the farmers who are in utter distress due to crop loss and increasing loan burden.
"We have come here to meet the chief minister and apprise him about the plight of the farmers. However, he sent police force to terrorise us. We strongly condemn the undemocratic move of the chief minister who has no courage to face the family members of the farmers who committed suicide over crop loss," Panda said.
"With no government assistance reaching to the affected farmers yet, the party will build a public movement across the state to fight against the administrative inertia," he added.
While the BJD leaders have been targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not giving an audience to them over the issue of enhanced minimum support price for paddy, the chief minister here is not interested to discuss the farmers' issue despite a repeated request from the BJP for a meeting, said state BJP vice-president Samir Mohanty.
The BJP took out a rally from Ram Mandir to the state secretariat via House Board office under the leadership of Panda. A scuffle ensued between the saffron party workers and the city police near Rabindra Madap as the saffron party activists tried to break police cordon. However, the BJP workers managed to cross at least two layers of barricading set-up by the commissionerate police ahead of Rabindra Mandap. The police eventually managed to block the demonstrators near Rabindra Mandap and took them into custody.
The BJP has been demanding speedy disbursement of compensation for crop loss to affected farmers, waiver of farm loan and lending of the interest-free loan for rabi crops.