BHUBANESWAR:A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s no-holds-barred attack on the Naveen Patnaik Government for rejecting the Centre’s flagship Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme, BJP president Amit Shah cautioned the Odisha Government that his party will launch a massive campaign against the anti-poor decision of the State.
Coming down heavily on the Chief Minister for depriving Odisha people of the benefit of Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), one of the biggest heath care programmes in the world, Shah in a series of tweets said the politically motivated decision of Patnaik is reprehensible.“The benefit of the Central health care programme is not reaching the poor people of Odisha due to meanness of the BJD. The Chief Minister is depriving them the benefit either due to cheap political gain or his antipathy towards the BJP,” Shah said in a tweet.
Cautioning Naveen that his Government will pay a heavy price for this anti-poor attitude, the BJP president said his party will launch a door-to-door awareness campaign on the issue.Meanwhile, Shah’s visit to attend the national executive committee meeting of the BJP Mahila Morcha at Puri has worked up the party workers who are confused if the battle cry of top leadership is for public consumption or for real.
Though Shah has been harshest in his remarks against Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, some major recent happenings in which the BJD extended critical support to the NDA Government at the Centre and reluctance of Union ministers to attack the State Government during their visit to the State in the recent past have created confusion among the party workers about the shape of things taking place between the two parties.
Shah, who had once described Naveen Patnaik as the burnt transformer and appealed to the people to change the Government for better power supply (development), is not as virulent in his attack on the Chief Minister during his last few visits to the State.“The party workers are in utter confusion after BJD extended support to the NDA Government by abstaining during the no-trust motion and to BJP candidate in the election of Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Though the Prime Minister’s Jharsuguda speech has infused fresh energy among the workers, they are still skeptical,” said a party insider.
Admitting that the speed at which the organisational works were moving till last year has slowed down in the recent months, the sources said everyone in the party is waiting for Saha’s visit to the State as he is scheduled to meet a core group of the State BJP at Puri.Apart from addressing the Mahila Morcha executive committee meeting, Shah will hold a series of meetings with state functionaries and booth in-charges of a few parliamentary constituencies to review the organisational tasks he had given during his July visit.