People in Dhamnagar are with BJP, says Dharmendra

Bhubaneswar: Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday said the BJD’s strategy of relying on money power and administrative machinery will backfire in Dhamnagar byelection in the face of people support for the BJP.
“The BJP has been fighting the bypoll on the basis of people’s support. We have been highlighting the problems of unemployment, the woes of flood-affected people and to fulfil other local aspirations. Our organizational strength is strong here for the past 40 years. The misuse of money and administrative power by the ruling BJD will not work,” Pradhan said while responding to media queries after attending a preparatory meeting of BJP workers ahead of the byelection in Bhadrak town.
Stating that in the past also the party in power for a long time had turned arrogant, Dharmendra said a single incident had unseated them and changed the state’s political landscape, indirectly referring to the gang-rape in 1999 which is said to be the reason behind Congress’s debacle in Odisha. The minister said reports of involvement of many ruling party politicians and influential bureaucrats in the shameful honey-trap scandal and the death of zilla parishad member Dharmendra Sahoo have angered the people, particularly women.
Exuding confidence that people will vote for the BJP, Pradhan said people in Odisha are fed up with the current government’s inaction in its long years of governance.
State revenue and disaster management minister Pramila Mallik said while people in Odisha in general are with the BJD because of the tireless efforts of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, the women, youth and students are particularly excited to vote for party candidate Abanti Das.
BJD MLA Amar Prasad Satpathy said the party has fully consolidated its base among voters in Dhamnagar. “Gradually, more and more people are getting aligned with the BJD because of the chief minister’s social welfare measures for all sections of society,” Satpathy said.