Naveen Patnaik says big parties working for own interest

Bhubaneswar: Faced with intense belligerence from the BJP that is eying to wrest power from his party, the BJD, in 2019, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday evoked regional sentiment to put a brake on the saffron party’s ambition.

Without naming any party, he alleged that the national parties were destroying the country’s federal structure and they were working for their interest only. With the Congress in moribund for over five years now, the CM’s remark is seen as an indirect attack on the BJP.

The BJP, led by its national president Amit Shah, Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Jual Oram and Prakash Javadekar, has regularly been attacking Mr Patnaik on governance and corruption issues.

The BJP has set “Mission 120-plus” under which it aims to win at least 120 Assembly seats in 2019 polls. The arrest of a host of BJD leaders in the multi-crore chit fund scam which the BJD sees as political vendetta has shaken the regional outfit in recent times.

The chief minister stated that such parties had misled the people.

 “People of Odisha will not accept such fake development. BJD is following my father’s ideology and the party is committed to the development. BJD is also committed to protecting Odisha’s land, water and air,” said Mr Patnaik. BJD’s Jan Sampark Padayatra programme that is aimed at informing people about the state government’s welfare programmes and also the Centre’s “neglect” was launched on October 2. The month-long mass contact programme to be carried out across the state was kicked off by chief minister and Mr Patnaik in Bhubaneswar.