Mrunal Manmay Dash

Bhubaneswar: The deadlock in Odisha Assembly continues to be far from over with State Supplies Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain's fresh statement in the House on paddy procurement spurring the Opposition in the Assembly to term it as 'gross betrayal'.

It was expected that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's gesture in escorting the protesting Opposition BJP leaders to his residence for a discussion over paddy procurement on Friday would be a silver lining in the crisis that has been sickening for farmers across the State and also normalise the six-day-long stalemate in the House proceedings at the Odisha Assembly.

However, as Supplies Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain put his statement in the House, BJP members including the Leader of Opposition, Pradipta Naik slammed the Chief Minister alleging that he had betrayed them.

"We went to the CM hopeful that the paddy procurement will get back on track. But the statement that the Supplies Minister gave in the House today was nothing new. He should have assured us to lift the entire stocks of paddy from mandis across Odisha," alleged a visibly agitated Naik.

He further said, "The CM had assured us to attend the all party meet today, but he did not."

Refuting allegations levelled by the BJP, ruling BJD leader Pratap Deb said, "There is no point in stalling the House proceedings at a time when the Minister has assured to lift paddy of which tokens have already been issued."

"Their approach seems to me as an attempt to survive only in the media sphere," Dev said.

Meanwhile the Congress party took a jibe at both BJP and BJD saying that the BJP went there as a marriage party and CM Naveen took them in with flower showers. "It indicates only one thing; the BJP and BJD are hand in gloves."

"Yesterday's proceedings were like a cinema being played on the silver screen. I tried to register it on the House records, so that the people know who is actually concerned for the farmers," said Congress strongman Narasingha Mishra said.

(Edited By Suryakant Jena)

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