After staging a mock wedding between the ruling BJD and Opposition BJP alleging nexus between the two parties a few months back, Odisha Congress launched another satiric jibe at both parties by opening a ‘PAANN Bhandaar’.
Alleging that both parties are involved in many corruption activities, the party came up with a pun acronym PAANN (Pandian, Amit Shah, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Narendra Modi & Naveen Patnaik). Paan is the colloquial term for betel.
Congress workers opened betel shops to highlight the alleged scams by the BJD and BJP. As per reports, the leaders and workers of the grand old party symbolically sold betel by branding them as 'Rs 800 crore Loan scam pan,' 'Rs 9,000 crore electoral bond pan,' 'Rs 500 crore Chit fund scam pan,' and 'Rs 9 lakh crore mining scam pan' etc.
Many senior leaders of Congress including the party's Odisha in-charge, Ajoy Kumar were present during the novel protest against the BJD and BJP.
“Naveen Patnaik and Narendra Modi governments are involved in massive corruption. People are leaving Odisha as they don’t have any employment opportunities in the State. The State government has looted people through chit-fund, mining and Covid scams. While the people of the State are becoming poorer, the leaders are becoming richer,” said Ajoy Kumar.
“We are selling paan to expose the corruption by the BJD and BJP,” said a Congress leader.
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“We are selling paan symbolically to create awareness among people about various corruption activities by the BJD and BJP. It will have a huge impact on the people of Odisha and they will give their verdict accordingly in the 2024 General Elections,” said another Congress leader.
However, no reactions were received from the BJD and BJP.