Bhubaneswar: It seems that ‘padayatras’ and public-connect campaigns have now become the latest weaponry of the three major political parties in Odisha- the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) to target each other ahead of the general elections.
After BJD’s ‘Jan Sampark Yatra’ and Congress’ ‘Jan Jagran Yatra’, the BJP has now decided to launch ‘Parivartan and Lok Sampark Padayatra’ to garner people’s support.
The saffron party’s decision to launch an intensive campaign against Odisha government’s corruption was taken at the state executive meeting of the party held on Sunday.
Odisha BJP president, Basant Panda informed that a ‘Halla Bol’ campaign will be launched from October 27 to expose and highlight corruption in the State.
BJP has planned for a month-long ‘Lok Sampark Padayatra’ to be undertaken at the village-level from November 1 to 30 and ‘Parivartan Yatra’ from December 1 to 30, informed Panda.
“BJP under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi will lay the foundations for a new Odisha,” said Panda.
Over the past several years, the BJD has been organizing the ‘Jan Sampark Yatra’ across Odisha. The main objective of the programme is to reach out to people by highlighting the achievements of Odisha government and failures of the Centre.
“BJP is now in a state of panic as the popularity of Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik is growing each day. They (BJP) are now just copying our padayatra which BJD has been conducting for the last 10 years. Such attempts of BJP will not yield any results,” said BJD spokesperson, Sasmit Patra.
The Congress too recently launched the ‘Jan Jagran Yatra’ to highlight the failures of Odisha government and BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.
“Has the BJP been successful in fulfilling the promises in the last 4.5 years? They only know how to criticize others,” said Odisha Congress chief, Niranjan Patnaik.