BHUBANESWAR: With the Opposition training guns at the state government over acute shortage of fertiliser and increasing crime and atrocities on women, the upcoming Assembly session is expected to be stormy.
These issues were the major agenda of discussion at the meeting of the council of ministers chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Tuesday at his official residence, ahead of the all-party meeting convened by Assembly Speaker Surama Padhy.
While no official statement on discussions in the meeting has been forthcoming, sources said the government has no clear answer to the two issues which the Opposition want to exploit the treasury benches.
The fertiliser crisis is visible across the state as long queues of farmers are being seen at PACS and LAMPS for days together to get a bag or two. The state government’s claim of having sufficient fertiliser stock across districts sounds hollow when farmers are struggling to get chemical soil nutrients as per their requirements, they said.
“All the PACS in the state are still under the control of BJD people and they have created an artificial crisis. The government has not been able to break their nexus. The party MLAs are aggrieved as they could not come to the rescue of farmers,” sources claimed. The BJD, which staged a demonstration near Raj Bhavan on the issues, will certainly get traction, they said.
The BJP legislature party meeting scheduled on Thursday, before the start of monsoon session, is also set to be a tough one for the government as there is a visible dissatisfaction among party MLAs over various issues. Inordinate delay in cabinet expansion and appointment of chairpersons to different corporations and boards are the issues likely to be raised in the BJPLP meeting.
The party MLAs are also complaining about lack of any development works in their constituencies even after 15 months of the BJP government. The block-level officials are not cooperating with the elected representatives and the ministers concerned are not heeding their complaints, the sources said.