Bhubaneswar: Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram Tuesday alleged large scale irregularities in distribution of media passes for the coverage of the Men’s Hockey World Cup and condemned the state government for spending huge amount of money for the inaugural function.
Oram said crores of rupees are being spent for the inaugural function of the HWC but Hockey remains neglected in the state.
The Union minister said Sundargarh is the citadel of Hockey but the state government has not taken any step for the development of hockey in the district.
The SAI Hostel in Panposh and hockey stadium of the SAIL are yet to be revamped.
It was very unfortunate that in the name of promoting hockey, the ruling BJD is promoting its party by organising the HWC in the state, the minister added.
He, however, thanked the Centre and the Hokey India for holding the mega event in Bhubaneswar and hoped that this time India will win the tournament and bring glory to India and Odisha.
Over the doubts expressed by former India Hockey Captain Dillip Tirkey over scoring goals by the Indian team, Oram said, “Instead of strengthening the will power of the Indian players Tirkey is discouraging them.”
BJP Spokesperson Sajjan Sharma also alleged that many journalists were not given media passes and the state government had discriminated in giving passes to the media people. He described the denial of media passes to many top journalists of the state as very unfortunate. The BJP leader said the passes were distributed as per the agenda of the ruling party in the state.
He said in a democratic set-up, everybody has a right to put his views but it is unfortunate to deliberately deprive the journalists of their rights.
He said the journalists had applied online for media passes but some of them were deprived of the media passes on the direction of the ruling party.
UNI