Samikhsya Bureau
As expected, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national President Amit Shah launched a diabolical attack on the Naveen Patnaik-led government in Odisha and time and again urged the people to give the BJP a chance. Shah, however, chose the Odia card piggybacking on Madhu Babu and latter’s relentless fight for Odia language lulling people to bring an Odia-speaking chief minister in Odisha.
At the same breath he played to the gallery saying that Odisha should have a Odia speaking chief minister in the state in an apparent swipe at the chief minister Naveen Patnaik who has not been able to speak Odia.
What was discernible that Shah’s filibustering today was bereft of the blistering tenor of past days. His attacks were measured and free of the crudity seen in his earlier speeches. What was conspicuously missing in his speech was the reiteration of his Mission 120 for 2019.
He chose to bracket both the Biju Janata Dal and the Congress together for the spoils, taking Odisha nowhere in so many decades and was found appealing to the masses in plain language to give five years only to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for building a ‘Mahan Utkal’.
Shah made a sharp throwback to the past to recount the irregularities committed in Puri where Lord Jagannath was not even spared from being neglected and His ‘Ratnabhandar’ which was made a victim of insecurity.
Shah said that Patnaik is so apprehensive about his dwindling popularity that he did not allow Modi’s Ayushman Bharat Yojna that is going benefit over 50 crore people making healthcare much more cheaper and easy.
The BJP president made a web of statistical sophistry recounting the funds allocated to Odisha, which was over Rs.5.13 lakh crore, the highest ever in the state’s history but the BJD dispensation has failed to deliver anything. Making a tongue-in-cheek jibe at the BJD and the Congress, Shah likened both as two sides of one coin.
Photo- Sanjib Mukherjee
