Bhubaneswswar: Referring Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as an "advocate" of the Third Front, BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi today criticised him for his failure to stop the migration of people from the state, including his home district Ganjam.
"Let the advocate of Third Front use a chopper and take a glimpse of the people's mood here. The wind has changed its direction in Odisha," Modi said while flagging off the party's election campaign in the state.
Expressing concern over the poverty and backwardness of Odisha, the Gujarat Chief Minister drew a parallel between him and Naveen Patnaik.
"I have also completed 14 years as the Chief Minister of Gujarat like your Chief Minister in Odisha. In these 14 years, we made Gujarat so strong that people from all over the country, including every district of your state, go there in search of jobs."
"Your government, in contrast, has made you so poor that you still have to come to Gujarat and other states to earn your livelihood," he said.
"An artisan from Odisha is unable to find work in his home state. He has to go to Surat. Why is that? Will you agree with me that Odisha is poor, that it has been made poor, that its youth are unemployed, that there is a water crisis?," Modi said while drawing attention of the youths present among the crowd.
Promising rapid development in Odisha, Modi urged the people to vote him and his party to power both at the Centre and the state.
"I need 21 kamals (lotuses) from Odisha to usher in the change which the state badly needs," he said.
"You have Assembly polls along with the Lok Sabha elections. You have two laddoos (sweets) in your hands and I just want 60 months to bring changes," he said, adding the Chief Minister's home district of Ganjam faces acute shortage of drinking water and in Gujarat water supply was ensured to 9,000 villages in just eight years by laying pipelines.