The number of poor people has considerably increased during the long 19 years of the BJD rule in the State. Odisha has witnessed unemployment problem, while farmers are also affected severely with false promises given by the BJP and the BJD during election time, said AICC secretary Mastan Vali in a Press meet here on Tuesday.

Vali further said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik are in league and cheating Odisha and Odias continuously. The Sankalp Yatra of Congress scheduled to be held on January 25 at Bhubaneswar in the presence of AICC president Rahul Gandhi will bring a sea change in Odisha politics, he claimed.

There will be Congress wave in the State politics, said the AICC functionary.

Vali who is also Odisha unit in- charge said during the last four and a half years of NDA Government in the Centre, no exemplary development has taken place. Rather, they have cheated farmers, unemployed youths, tribals and women in the name of development, he charged.

Vali told the quitting of MLA Naba Kishore Das wouldn’t affect the poll prospects of the party, citing the  Chattisgarh  case where the Congress working president also had joined BJP at the eleventh hour.

OPCC vice-president and former MLA Santosh Singh Saluja slammed the Odisha Government over paddy MSP hike. Congress leaders Hamid Hussain, Raju Sarangi, former Jharsuguda MLA Birendra Pandey, District Congress president Girish Panda and Town Congress president Bharat Awasthi among others were present.