BHUBANESWAR: A day after BJP president Amit Shah completed his two-day visit to Western Odisha districts, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday dismissed his claim that the saffron party will win more than 120 seats in next year’s Assembly elections in Odisha as an exaggeration. Countering Shah’s allegations, the BJD supremo said his Government had never neglected the Western Odisha. “The State Government has never neglected the western Odisha districts. As you can see, we are working for all-round development of that region,” he told mediapersons here.
Shah had alleged at a public meeting in Balangir on Thursday that the BJD Government has neglected the western Odisha districts. The BJP chief had also said the saffron party will give special attention to development of western region of the State, if voted to power. “Naveen Patnaik has been adopting a step-motherly attitude towards the western region. While the area under irrigation across the State is 33 per cent, it is only 11 per cent in the western districts. This shows that Naveen Babu has not done justice towards these districts,” Shah had said.
However, Naveen dismissed Shah’s claim that the BJP will more than 120 of the 147 Assembly seats in Odisha. “I think that (Shah’s estimation) is very very exaggerating. I do not see any basis of his claim,” the Chief Minister said with a smile on his face.On the first day of his visit to Odisha on April 4, Shah had not mentioned about the BJP’s target of winning 120 plus seats in the State. The BJP chief had set the “120 plus” target during his visit in September last year.
“I had not spoken about Mission 120 yesterday (Wednesday) because I am sure that we will win more seats here, much bigger than the mandate we got in Tripura recently,” Shah had told the gathering at Balangir on Thursday.Meanwhile, the Chief Minister talked to booth committee members of 14 gram panchayats of Koraput district through video conferencing from the party headquarters here. He discussed organisational matters with party workers and advised them to take interest in implementation of development schemes in their areas.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister has sanctioned 30 projects worth `1.08 crore under the Ama Gaon Ama Bikash programme for Danra, Raynarsinghpur and Bhatli gram panchayats of Deogarh, Dhenkanal and Bargarh districts respectively after interacting with the sarpanches and local people through video conferencing from the Secretariat here.