BHUBANESWAR: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said there is no difference between BJD and BJP and the party will target both during the ‘Bharat Jodo’ Odisha yatra to oust the Naveen Patnaik government in the State. There is no difference between the BJD and BJP. The Chief Minister is at the beck and call of the Prime Minister. His party MPs also do whatever the Prime Minister wants,” Ramesh told a media conference here.
The former Union Minister said that Congress will raise these issues during the Odisha part of the padayatra scheduled to begin on October 31. The yatra will cover around 2,250 km in the State.Ramesh said he along with former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and other senior leaders will participate in the padayatra being organised to expose both BJD and BJP.
Ramesh said the national-level Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi will continue to target Narendra Modi, BJP and RSS to make people aware of the alleged attempts being made to divide the people of the country. Stating that there is an undeclared emergency in the country due to the authoritarian approach of the PM, Ramesh alleged that attempts are being made to divide people on religious and caste lines, while India is hit by a glaring economic crisis.
He said too much centralisation has led the country to a dangerous situation. Ramesh said state-level yatras are being organised in some states including Odisha where the ongoing south to north yatra led by Rahul Gandhi from Kanyakumari to Kashmir is not passing through. Maybe next year, a similar yatra from east to west will possibly be organised, he said.The ‘Bharat Jodo’ yatra will benefit the Congress hugely and there is good response. “This is a padayatra and not like LK Advani’s yatra in a Toyota vehicle,” he said.
Digvijay Singh said the aim of the yatra is to reach every household to spread the message about the manner in which constitutional institutions are being targeted by the Centre. “The aim is to save the country and the constitution from attempts by BJP and RSS to split the country,” he added.
OPCC President Sarat Pattanayak said the Congress will make the people aware of both the Centre and the State governments’ failures during the padayatra. Growing unemployment, unprecedented price rise and neglect of health and education sectors will be major issues, he added.