BHUBANESWAR: Keeping his eye firmly on women voters, especially those living in rural areas, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday launched Pradhan Mantri LPG Panchayat in the State to reach out to beneficiaries of Ujjwala scheme ahead of 2019 elections.
Taking a leaf out Prime Minister Narendra Modi's interaction with beneficiaries of different welfare schemes for women followed by similar initiative by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik under his 'Ama Gao Ama Vikash' programme, which turned out to be a huge success, Pradhan made an attempt to connect with maximum number of women voters, who constitute nearly 50 per cent of the total electorates.
Emboldened by the success in Uttar Pradesh elections where the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana paid reach dividend to the BJP, the LPG Panchayat is an attempt to garner support of the women.
In the first phase, Pradhan interacted with about 18,000 women beneficiaries of 100 blocks of the State though video conference.
Pradhan said his Ministry has intensified the campaign to extending the benefit of the scheme to more families. He said the LPG connection has been provided to 53 lakh families, including 34 lakh under Ujjwala Yojana after NDA came to power.
However, BJD described the LPG Panchayat as an attempt to cover up the lost ground after corruption in selection of beneficiaries under the scheme came to the fore. The BJP has come up with the strategy to cover the corruption in beneficiaries selection but people of Odisha understood their game, said BJD spokesperson, Sasmit Patra.
Responding to the allegations, BJP spokesperson Samir Mohanty said the people are well aware of the corruption of BJD government. The Prime Minister during his visit to the State had attacked the Government for large scale corruption and PC culture in government works.