Bhubaneswar: BJP’s Odisha in-charge D Purandeswari, Saturday, took a swipe at the state government for the alleged anti-farmer policies of the latter and accused Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of not keeping his poll promises.
The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader held a presser here to fire salvos at the state government and the Chief Minister. Purandeswari said, “The state is making so much noise on the farmers’ issue but the farmers here understand very well as to which government has stood with them.”
She also said, “The state came up with the KALIA scheme but the dues are yet to be paid to the eligible farmers. Initially, the state had said that it had 35 lakh farmers but later it said it has 21 lakh farmers. It hints that they have failed to do a proper enumeration of the farmers.”
She also said that the state government has also failed in providing adequate irrigation facilities for the farmers while the drinking water promises also remain unfulfilled. “There are many villages in Odisha where water available in their area is not fit for drinking. There are more than 1,000 villages in the state which are yet to see piped water projects,” she said.
The BJP leader also accused the Chief Minister of not fulfilling the promise of pucca houses. “The BJD government never keeps its promises it makes to the people. In 2014, the government had said that it would turn all kutcha houses into pucca. However, the same promise was fulfilled in 2019. It was clear that the government has failed on this front too. In rural areas, more than 2 lakh kutcha houses are yet to be made pucca,” she said.
She also questioned the state government for not joining Ayushman Bharat scheme.
However, Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) national spokesperson Sasmit Patra said, “It would have been better if she had spoken more about farmer related issues, particularly hiking the MSP as per a unanimous resolution of March 25, 2017 in Odisha Assembly seeking revision of MSP of paddy from Rs 1,470 to Rs 2,930 per quintal.”
Patra also said, “It seems that she is unaware that Odisha has received five awards from her party’s government at the Centre for constructing largest number of houses.”
