BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik again targeted the BJP on Friday for not keeping its promise made to the people of Odisha to accord special category status to the State.
“Giving special category State status to Odisha was the first agenda in BJP’s 2014 poll manifesto. However, the party forgot the promise after coming to power,” Naveen said during the Jana Sampark Padyatra in the Capital City.
He called upon the people to remind the BJP of the promise in 2019 elections.
The Chief Minister said he was extremely happy over the BJP’s promise with the hope that the people of Odisha will finally get justice. “However, hope for the people remained in hope and never materialised,” he said.
Naveen said both BJD and BJP were fighting for special category State status for Odisha till 2009 before the alliance between the two parties broke. “Special category status for Odisha is our right and BJD will fight for it till it is fulfilled,” he said.
He maintained that Odisha is hit by natural calamities every year and has been incurring huge losses. “Is not occurrence of frequent natural calamities a strong ground to accord special category status to Odisha?,” he asked.
Stating that youths of Odisha would have been the biggest beneficiaries if the State was given special category status, the Chief Minister said, “Odisha would have got tax rebate. This would have brought more industries to the State and generated more jobs for the youths.”
“The BJD Government believes in work and not in words. The party had made four promises before 2014 elections on food security, pucca houses, health assurance and social security. We have worked on all the promises made to the people,” he said.
However, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan criticised the Chief Minister over the issue saying that his remarks in the party meeting contradicted the stand of the State Government in the Assembly in this regard. “Even though the Chief Minister knows that there is no provision for special category State status after the 14th Finance Commission, he is unnecessarily politicising the matter by raking up the issue during party programmes,” he said.
Stating that the issue of Central neglect is no longer relevant in the case of Odisha, Pradhan alleged that the State Government is coming in the way of implementation of schemes for the development of Odisha. The Union Minister said Odisha is now getting `5000 crore from Railways while out of `9000 crore Central funds received by the State for improvement in power infrastructure, `4000 crore has remained unspent.
Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Narasingh Mishra targeted both the Centre and the State Government on the issue. “Both BJP and BJD win elections by making false promises,” he said.