Odishatv Bureau
Bhubaneswar: As many as 15,000 activists of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Monday boarded seven special trains for New Delhi to attend the party’s Wednesday ‘Swabhiman Samabesh’, presumably to pound the last nail in the coffin for the State’s long standing demand for Special Status Category (SCS).
 
The specially requisitioned trains left from Puri, Cuttack, Bhadrakh, Berhampur, Koraput, Sambalpur and Rourkela today afternoon with partymen showing utmost enthusiasm to express their solidarity for Odisha’s rightful place.
 
Party leaders claim, the Delhi rally, styled on the lines of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s ‘Adhikar’ rally in March, will witness more than 30,000 footfalls to press for the ruling party’s SCS demand for Odisha. 
 
To strengthen the event, while some senior party leaders have been camping in the national capital for quite some days to muster support of local Odias, others today left with the party supporters, after pulling them from several constituencies.
 
“We have made contacts with various Odia ogranisations to assemble here in great numbers,” said Agriculture Minister Devi Prasad Mishra in New Delhi.
 
“We have already collected all necessary permissions to hold rally at Ramlila Maidan and the appointment of President Pranab Mukherjee to present our memorandum with 1 crore signatures of Odia people for SCS to Odisha,” added Mishra.
 
Soon after the meeting, chief minister Naveen Patnaik-led delegation of 30 party leaders would call on the President on Wednesday and deliver the memo containing signature of 1 crore people.
 
On Sunday, senior BJD legislator V Sugyan Kumari Deo handed over Patnaik a memorandum carrying signature of one crore people at a massive rally held here at Khandagiri , following the culmination of a month-long signature campaign of the party.
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