Bhubaneswar: Upping its arms against BJD Government, the BJP today announced to hold mass demonstrations across the State from November 14 to 18 in protest against massive corruption from Panchayat to State level.
Holding a press conference here, BJP State President Manmohan Samal alleged that corruption and the PC system are prevailing right from Panchayat to Secretariat level in Odisha.
While Gram Sabha is not being held, the powers of Sarpanch and Samiti members have been hijacked, he said.
Slamming the BJD government over the much-hyped ‘Ama Odisha Nabin Odisha’ programme, Samal alleged that the programme is designed to fund the election campaign.
In the Ama Odisha Nabin Odisha scheme 50 percent PC is being collected and provided to BJD workers ahead of the election, he alleged.
During the 23 years of BJD rule, the State has got only corruption, violence against women and an administration system based on undemocratic and apolitical ways, he stated.
“There is no longer a political system in the state. Over the years, corruption spread from panchayats to districts and the practice of ‘percentage commissions (PC)’ in government work has been normalised. There is no chance of any work getting done without a PC. The hard-earned money of poor people is being misappropriated,” Shri Samal further alleged.
The BJP leader said two months back the BJP had launched a programme to gherao Panchayat against corruption and inefficiency across the State which received massive public support.
Shri Samal said the government has miserably failed to provide drinking water to people who are facing a lot of hardship and dying for water. He cited the death of 11 people in Keonjhar district.
The latest CAG report has used rude words like fraud against the government for large scale corruption. As per the CAG report, he said, 8.59 lakh people selected by the Gram Sabha have been illegally deleted from the list of beneficiaries.
Despite fulfilling all criteria 97.5 percent PWD and 30 percent landless people have not yet been allotted pucca ghar while as many as 5.50 lakh houses were returned due to the inefficiency of the State Government, he pointed out.
The Union government, Shri Samal said, has provided over Rs 15,000 crore to the State under Jala Jiban Mission in 2015 but unfortunately the state Government is trying to loot the amount.
“Keeping their anger in view, we will gherao all the blocks from November 14 till November 18,” he announced.
Reacting to Samal’s allegations, BJD MLA Amar Satpathy said, “No one is stopping them (the BJP) from launching agitation. They are doing this to keep themselves relevant in Panchayats. They are not with the people.”
