 "BJD, Congress start padayatras to woo voters")
Though BJD had been undertaking "Padayatra" on Gandhi Jayanti every year, Congress took the padayatra route this year to woo people this time.
The BJD padayatra will culminate on Jayaprakash Nayaran's birth anniversary on October 11 while Congress plans to conclude its programme on the birth anniversary of Utkalmani Gopabandhu Dash on October 9.
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Addressing the party activists in Bhubaneswar today, BJD supremo and chief minister Naveen Patnaik lashed out at the Congress-led UPA government.
Patnaik said that the UPA regime is filled with corruption and is sitting on a mountain of scams.
“The UPA government is a non-performing one coupled with a faulty economic policy. It has brought nothing but misery with high inflation, skyrocketing prices and hike in the prices of petroleum products”, he added.
Launching the 10-day long padyatra here, chief minister said his party would draw attention of people to a series of corruption in the UPA government and would communicate about the Centre’s apathy towards legitimate demand of Odisha.
"There is no point in claiming credit over Central assistance to the state. You (Centre) have been taking thousands of crores of rupees from Odisha in the name of different taxes. Whatever the state got is negligible," Patnaik said at a gathering before launching the padyatra.
While Patnaik and the local MP Prasanna Patasani along with all the three MLAs of Bhubaneswar were present here, the party MLAs and leaders held similar programmes in all districts.
Patnaik highlighted the various schemes initiated by his government during his 13 years of rule. He added that the state government has decided to provide land and energy to people residing in the slums.
In the padyatra rally today, the Congress pledged to highlight 'misdeeds' of Naveen Patnaik regime and make people aware of different welfare schemes launched by the Centre.
For the Congress party, which has witnessed fissures within the organisation over poor performance in the recently concluded urban local body elections, it was a damage control attempt as many leaders who have openly spoken about each other, were present today at the event held at Swaraj Ashram in Cuttack. In the meeting today, former Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Niranjan Patnaik, Union minister Srikant Jena, former chief minister Giridhar Gamang, former Union minister K C Lenka and others were present.