Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra van vandalised in Odisha; BJP MLA says BJD behind attack

A campaigning van under the central government's Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra was reportedly vandalised at Dhamnagar in Bhadrak on Wednesday. The incident was reported from Chudakiti panchayat under the Dhamnagar constituency.

The sankalp yatra is being organised by the centre to raise awareness through outreach activities and achieve saturation of various welfare schemes launched by the Central government. 

Training guns on the ruling party over the incident, BJP MLA Suryavanshi Suraj termed it a sponsored attack on the Yatra and held the Biju Janata Dal(BJD) responsible for it.

“The BJD is unable to tolerate the developmental and welfare works being undertaken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Women in large numbers attended the Sankalp Yatra. Health check-up programmes were conducted in the presence of ASHAs,” he said.

He added that common people were registering complaints about toilets and allotment of housing units under the awas yojana. “The BJD is not being able to tolerate the complaint collection exercise. It was a sponsored attack on the official programme where a PEO and some officials of various departments were present. Such an incident is not a good omen for democracy at all,” he observed.

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However, BJD’s district unit vice president, Ashok Nayak said, “The BJD doesn't believe in violence. Our area has seen development. Why the BJD will try to foil the programmes as alleged by the MLA.”

The Yatra, which was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 15, 2023, from Khunti, Jharkhand with multiple Information, Education and Communication (IEC) vans launched simultaneously from various locations across the country, aims to cover over 2.60 lakh Gram Panchayats and 4000+ Urban Local Bodies by January 25, 2024.