Bhubaneswar: With the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections round the corner, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has decided to reach out to the people in Odisha and seek their opinion for its election manifesto.
Announcing this at a joint press briefing here on Monday, senior BJD leader Arun Sahu and spokesperson Sasmit Patra said the party leaders and workers, in a door-to-door campaign beginning tomorrow, will visit 86 lakh families in the state and seek their opinion. On the basis of their opinion, the party will prepare its poll manifesto, they said.
The campaign, ‘Ghare Ghare Sankha, Matamata Dianti Apana, Palana Karanti Naveen'(Conch in every house, you give opinion, Naveen executes them) is being launched on Tuesday to mark the 103rd birth anniversary of the legendary leader Biju Patnaik, the BJD leaders added.
Coming down heavily on the BJP, they said the saffron party had failed to keep its promises made to the people in the last general election in 2014.
Commenting on the statements of the BJD leaders, BJP state unit vice-president Samir Mohanty said the manifesto campaign announced by the ruling party was nothing but a cut-paste of that of their party. “The BJP had taken out Jan Sampark Padayatra two months ago and covered all 147 Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in the state,” he said.
On the other hand, the Congress alleged that neither the BJD nor the Congress had been able to keep any of the promises made during 2014 polls.
“Both the parties have squarely failed in keeping their promises to address the issues of the farmers, youths, education, health and economic development of the state,” Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Niranjan Patnaik told the media here.
