BHUBANESWAR: Boycott of the meeting of the governing council of NITI Aayog at New Delhi by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday has sparked off a war of words between the ruling BJD and opposition BJP and Congress.
While the BJD defended the decision of the Chief Minister stating that he had prior engagements, the BJP and Congress maintained that the boycott of the meeting is against the interest of the State. “Naveen has taken oath as per the Constitution of India. However, he is concentrating more on his party work and ignoring constitutional responsibility, which does not augur well for Odisha,” senior BJP leader and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram told mediapersons here.
Oram said like the Maoists, who are not allowing the police to the village and are persuading the villagers to boycott the elections, the Chief Minister is boycotting the NITI Aayog, Ayushman and Akankhya schemes of the Centre. “By doing this, he is pushing Odisha to a state of lawlessness, which is unfortunate,” he said.Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan also criticised the Chief Minister’s decision as ‘unfortunate’.
Stating that the Chief Minister had attended the meeting of the NITI Aayog last year, president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Niranjan Patnaik asked what went wrong this year. “On which forum he will raise the issues concerning Odisha,” Patnaik asked and added, “Will he tell his party MPs not to attend Parliament.”
Even West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee attended the NITI Aayog meeting, Patnaik said and added that it seems the Chief Minister is not ready to place the issues of Odisha at the meeting as his policies are not clear.
However, BJD spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Pratap Keshari Deb defended the decision of the Chief Minister saying he could not attend the meeting as he had prior engagements in the State.The State Government had submitted its opinion on the subjects in the agenda of the meeting in written form, he said.