Bhubaneswar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up for a two day state executive meet at Baripada from April 22 to chalk out a roadmap to bolster its base in Odisha. And the party has, as usual, kept its agenda to target Naveen led government in the state.
Official sources said that the state executive assumes significance as the Odisha unit of BJP would be eyeing to make rapid inroads in BJD bastions by implementing the plans finalised at the recently concluded National Executive Meet held at Bhubaneswar.
As the countdown begins, the party has started targeting the BJD-rule in the state with the Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Jual Oram today accusing the BJD of failure in utilizing the central funds allotted to various welfare schemes in the State.
Oram said that the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry had allotted Rs 1,500 crores to Odisha in the last three years. Though Odisha was allocated Rs 421.29 crores towards 12 schemes in the financial year 2014-15, the State government could only utilize half of the sanctioned funds.
“Naveen Patnaik is only blaming the Centre for neglecting the State, but the ground reality is different,” said Oram.
BJD on the other hand has refuted such allegations levelled by the Union Minister.
“As the Centre is delaying the approvals for programmes, the departments are not able to properly utilize the funds,”said BJD spokesperson Suryanarayan Patro.