 "Throw out Naveen govt in Odisha, Amit Shah tells partymen at BJP rally")
Launching an unprecedented and scathing attack on the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in Odisha, the Bharatiya Janata party's (BJP) national president Amit Shah on Friday called for dislodging the state's ruling dispensation in the next election. With this, he also blew the bugle of the party for the ensuing the panchayat polls in the state.
Well before his visit to address the 'Jana Jagaran rally' in Bhubaneswar, political circles were agog with speculation whether Shah would go all out after the BJD and its supremo, or do an encore of his last visit on January 6, 2015, when he avoided direct criticism of the state government at a rally in the city, much to the dismay of his state party unit leaders.
Many thought Shah might go soft on Patnaik considering the latter was the first chief minister in the country to congratulate prime minister Narendra Modi on demonetisation and his party BJD lending crucial support to the Centre in Parliament on issues like GST (goods and services tax).
But Shah proved them wrong as he tore into the failures of the BJD government, which has been in power in Odisha for the past 17 years, on various fronts with a bunch of statistical data.
"I will tell later what the Modi government has done for development and for Odisha. I am here to ask you what you have done in last 17 years. Give me the details. For a state and country, 17 years is a long time," Shah said, apparently countering the BJD's conventional accusation of the Centre's negligence.
Pointing out that states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Goa, Haryana, and Jharkhand (incidentally all BJP-ruled) have come a long way on the road of development, he said Odisha had hardly progressed during the past one-and-a-half decades.
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He chided the state government and accused it of failure on different fronts such as water supply, employment generation, power supply, health services, agriculture and tribal welfare.
Invoking the recent incident of Dana Majhi, a tribal of Kalahandi district, who drew worldwide attention for carrying his wife's body on his shoulders for 13 km in the absence of an ambulance, Shah questioned the state government's right to rule when it has failed to provide basic facilities to people.
Shah urged the party workers to toil hard to throw the BJD government out.
The BJP president informed that the Union government had provisioned Rs 63,000 crore for Odisha in the 2016 budget, which is about Rs 40,000 crore more than what the UPA government had allocated in 2013. "During the past two-and-a-half years, we have given Rs 1,30,000 crore to Odisha under various heads, of which Rs 57,000 crore was for long-term schemes," he said.
"Modiji wants to do a lot for Odisha. But we need a government here that will deliver Modiji's plans to the poor, youth and tribals. Toil hard for the next two-and-a-half years to throw out this government. The trailer of things to come should be enacted in the upcoming panchayat polls," Shah exhorted his party men.
Reacting to Shah's accusations, the BJD termed his rally a flop show.
"We have answers to all the questions he has raised. From the trailer, we do not feel that the show will run. He did not mention how much they took away from the state by changing the pattern of fund devolution to the states," said Pratap Keshari Deb.