The meeting of the State Cabinet, scheduled to be held on Saturday ahead of the winter session of the Assembly beginning from August 20, has been shifted to Monday as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik met the BJD committee for managing Urban Local Body (ULB) polls for selection of candidates.
Sources said the Chief Minister approved the municipality level committees of the BJD for selection of candidates for the polls. The committees will submit the list of candidates to the BJD president within two days. Naveen will finally announce the list of candidates.
The filing of nomination papers for the polls will start on August 20 and continue till August 24. The short monsoon session of the Assembly will begin from August 20.
The Cabinet on Monday is likely to pass the Odisha Police Bill to be placed by the Government in the Assembly during monsoon session.
The Congress camp also witnessed hectic activities on Saturday with the arrival of AICC general secretary in-charge BK Hariprasad and Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh who addressed a public meeting at Kendrapara.
Besides Hariprasad and Jairam, Union Minister of State for Programme Implementation Srikant Jena, Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh and OPCC president Jaydev Jena, who addressed the meeting, criticised the State Government for the death of the burn victim of Mahakalapada in the Capital Hospital here.
Besides, the Government came in for flak for deteriorating law and order situation, irregularities in distribution of BPL rice and opposition to implementation of the Food Security Bill.
Talking to a private television channel, Jairam said nobody is above the party. All Congress leaders should function as per the rules framed by the party, he added.
The AICC in-charge of Odisha BK Hariprasad had said the OPCC is competent to issue showcause notice to former MP Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.
There is a division in the Congress over the notice with several senior leaders maintaining that the OPCC is not competent to take such action against Patnaik who is an AICC member.