BHUBANESWAR: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will field candidates in all 853 Zilla Parishad seats in the ensuing panchayat polls scheduled in February, 2017.
Announcing this at a media conference here on Friday, vice-president of State BJP Samir Mohanty said the party will also field candidates for post of 7,000 sarpanchs and 40,000 to 60,000 ward members. Elections for sarpanch and ward member posts are held without party symbols in the panchayat polls.
The all-round failure of the State Government including its anti-dalit and tribal policies, death of children due to malnutrition, anti-farmer policies, drinking water crisis, failure to provide food security to a large number of people, non-existent health infrastructure in rural areas and chit fund and mining scams will be major issues to be raised by the party during campaign, Mohanty said.
Besides, the party will go to people with the pro-people programmes launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mohanty said after a meeting of the party where these decisions were taken.
Though the people of the State had given an overwhelming majority to the BJD in last panchayat polls, the party failed to live up to their expectations, Mohanty said and raised questions on the efficacy of schemes announced by the Government when incidents like Dana Majhi happen.
Criticising the Government for the deteriorating law and order situation in the State, the BJP leader alleged that there are large scale vacancies in schools, hospitals and police stations which have made administration non-existent at the grassroots level.