BHUBANESWAR: Bracing for a face-off with the ruling BJD on host of issues in the winter session of the Assembly starting Thursday, the BJP on Wednesday said that the party will oppose the decision to continue the practice of participation in the House proceedings by any member through virtual mode.
The BJP legislature party which met here under the chairmanship of Jayanarayan Mishra to chalk out its strategy for the session said this is the plan of the treasury benches to protect Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik from the Opposition.
“We did not agree with the proposal of BJD as the state government has lifted all restrictions imposed during Covid-19 pandemic. There is no point of attending the winter session virtually in normal situation,” Opposition chief whip in the Assembly Mohan Charan Majhi said after the meeting.
Describing this as a BJD strategy to keep the chief minister away from the Assembly, Majhi said it will be meaningless to run the Assembly without the leader of the House. If the CM is fit enough to attend public functions and even going outside the state and abroad then what is preventing him from attending the Assembly regularly when in session, he wondered.
Stating that his party will corner the government on issues confronting the farmers, Majhi alleged the BJD has been spreading lies on delay in payment of crop insurance, disbursement of input subsidy to farmers and unofficial announcement to give Padampur district status will be exposed in the Assembly.
He said there are plenty issues to be discussed during the forthcoming session and the major issues identified by the party included the massive bungling in the implementation of MGNREGS resulting in mass migration from western Odisha districts to other states in search of work, deteriorating law and order situation, rising unemployment and government dilly dallying over recruitment to posts lying vacant in all departments.The legislature party meeting was attended by 12 MLAs while 10 were busy campaigning in Padampur constituency.