BHUBANESWAR: With the week-long monsoon session of the Assembly beginning on Thursday, the BJD has decided to corner the government on issues of women’s security, fertiliser shortage, increasing financial powers of officers in the panchayati raj system and the Odia identity.
The decision was taken at the meeting of the BJD legislature party on Wednesday. Addressing the meeting, leader of Opposition and BJD president Naveen Patnaik said though this Assembly session is short, it will be politically significant.
“In the last three-and-a-half months, the double-engine government’s incompetence and indifference in various areas such as women’s security, fertiliser supply and protecting the interests of farmers have been exposed,” he added.
Stating that the law and order has completely broken down during the BJP government’s tenure, Naveen said atrocities against women are increasing and no one is safe in this country. Farmers are also facing fertiliser crisis, he added.
“The state government is trying to completely destroy the democratic values of the PRI system for political gains. Its decision to increase the financial powers of officers to make elected panchayat representatives irrelevant will be strongly opposed in the House,” the LoP said adding, the government will also be held accountable for the chaos and stampede that took place during Rath Yatra, the symbol of Odia identity.
In a post on X, the BJD president also expressed shock over the disappearance of a 25-year-old woman traffic constable from the capital and the subsequent recovery of her body in Keonjhar.
Stating that the incident has put a question mark on the functioning of the state government and the police, he said, “If the police department has not been able to find one of its own female employees for 10 days, it is easy to imagine what the situation of ordinary citizens would be like.”
He further added that if no immediate changes are made in the functioning of the Home department regarding women’s safety, more such incidents are likely to take place in the future.