Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhawanipatna, Jun 3:  

Odisha Congress today announced that the party will organise ‘Dhikkar Divas’ across all 314 blocks of the state on June 10 to highlight the failure of the Center and the State Government.

Prasad harichandan kalahandi

PCC President Prasad Harichandan made the announcement today while addressing a gathering in Bhawanipatna town of Kalahandi district that was also attended by AICC spokesperson Bhakta Das and Odisha in-charge BK Hariprasad among others.

Addressing the 6-7,000 strong audience, Harichandan pulled up the Central Government for its indifference towards Odisha and the State Government for failing to take it up at appropriate forums. He also took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and termed his yesterday’s ‘Vikas Utsav’ as ‘Bakwas Utsav’.

The leaders later took out a rally to the district collector’s office and submitted a memorandum seeking fulfilment of their eight point charter of demands that includes wagon factory in Narla, Jaring medical college issue, compensation to the deceased farmers and the NFSA irregularity issue.

“Drought and crop loss have broken the backbone of the farmers. Many have committed suicide. Neither the families have been given crop insurance nor have the deceased families received any compensation. Thousands of deserving families have been denied NFSA cards. People have been displaced from their homes for road expansion, but without any compensation. This is what Naveen Government has done for the poor of Kalahandi,” said former MP Bhakta Das addressing the gathering.

BJD and BJP, on the other hand, denied the allegations levelled by Congress leadership.

“Kalahandi would not have been in such a condition, had Congress done some work while they were in power. Bhakta Das couldn’t even bring in a single rupee for the Narla wagon factory even though he was the Minister of State for Railways,” said BJD Spokesperson and Junagarh MLA Dibya Shankar Mishra.

“Current Chief Minister has given an engineering college, an agriculture college, a cancer hospital even without asking. We are trying to upgrade the autonomous college to a university. They would not be able to mislead people by levelling such accusations. People will give them a befitting reply,” he added.

BJP also took on Das and Congress over their remarks.

“The people of the state very well understand the politics of Bhakta Das and Congress. They are facing an existential threat, yet are far removed from reality. Nobody stopped the Congress Prime Minister to present his report card before the public. They ruled the country, the state and Kalahandi for the better part since independence. They would not have faced this day, had they done some work,” said BJP Vice President Samir Mohanty.