Bhubaneswar: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Odisha Friday, Congress launched a six-hour-long hunger strike in Bhubaneswar, alleging a “rise” in violence against women and a “collapse” of the health system in the state.
Senior leaders of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC), led by its president Bhakta Charan Das and AICC’s state in-charge Ajay Kumar Lallu held the hunger strike in front of the party’s state headquarters in Bhubaneswar.
“Over 5,000 people have been affected and 17 have died due to an acute diarrhoea outbreak in 11 districts. These people are entitled to at least sympathy from the government,” Das said.
The Prime Minister and Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi should visit those affected by diarrhoea and hear their problems, he said.
Atrocities against women are “increasing day by day in Odisha as the state reported more than 65 “gang rape” incidents in the past one year of the BJP government”, Das alleged.
“During the Nirbhaya incident in Delhi, Modi himself had raised a strong voice against it. But now, hundreds of such incidents have been reported in the state,” he said, adding that the recent gang rape of a college student at Gopalpur has shocked the entire nation.
“Don’t the PM and the CM have any sympathy for the victim and her family?” asked the Congress leader.
Das claimed that the BJP government is “busy telling the people what they will do for them in 2036”.
Speaking to reporters, Lallu slammed the BJP government for the diarrhoea outbreak in the state, and alleged that the administration has “failed” to provide safe drinking water to the people.
Former president of OPCC, Jayadev Jena, said, “Rape and gang rape cases are being reported every day in Odisha but the government has remained a mute spectator. The law and order situation has completely collapsed in the state.”
The Prime Minister has given special packages for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, while Odisha “got nothing”, he said.
Reacting to the allegations, BJP state spokesperson Manoj Mohapatra said the Congress is “unnecessarily politicising the Gopalpur incident”.
“The government has taken strong action against the accused in the case. The people of Odisha have not forgotten the infamous gang rape incident that happened during the Congress regime, for which the party is being rejected by the people in every election,” he added.
PTI
