‘BJD, BJP in secret pact to garner votes in 2019’

Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik on Friday alleged that the BJD and the BJP have a secret alliance and they both have betrayed people by not working for development of the State.

“A series of incidents, be it BJD’s support to the GST or to NDA Presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind, or its abstinence from the No Confidence motion against Modi Government or support to the NDA’s Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman candidate, have clearly showed that the BJD is always with the BJP. They are allied inside and betraying people by telling lies,” Patnaik told a news conference here.

He further alleged that the BJD and the BJP are accusing each other only to garner votes in the 2019 elections. Both have started ‘Mission 120’, but they are actually on a ‘Mission 420’, which means they have planned to cheat Odia people for another five years. It has exposed BJD as a party having no ideology and excels in opportunistic politics, he said.

He said the BJP is no more an opposition party in the State. Claiming that the Congress is left as the only opposition party in the State, Patnaik said his party would go to people and make them know about the secret link between the two and how they are working for party’s interest sidelining development of the State.

To prove his claim, the PCC chief again alleged that BJP leaders are only talking against the BJD in Bhubaneswar and the BJD is talking of Central negligence in Odisha only. “No national leader of the BJP talks against the Chief Minister. The BJD never raises State issues and people’s problems in Parliament or at the NITI Aayog,” he said. 

While there is CBI fear on one hand, on the other the Congress party’s resurgence in Odisha has compelled the BJD to have stronger ties with the BJP, said Patnaik.