CM’s rally on Dec 2 to heat up by-poll scene yet more

 As the Padampur by-election gets closer, the BJP and the BJD, the top contenders, have intensified their campaigning, increasingly getting aggressive. They are confronting each other head-on by raising local issues that are key to deciding their candidates’ fate on the December 5 bypoll.

While the BJD has deployed a large number of its MLAs and Ministers and assigned each of them charge of a Ward or Panchayat to canvass for party candidate Barsha Singh Bariha, the daughter of deceased BJD MLA Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha, in order that the seat does not slip away from its hand, the BJP too has pressed into service a fleet of its leaders and workers, besides MLAs, MPs and Central Ministers. Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan who led the BJP candidate to victory in the recently concluded Dhamnagar bypoll by his aggressive campaigning and strategy, is also at the center stage in Padampur. Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Railway Minister Aswini Vaishnaw have criticised at the State Government for not properly implementing the Central schemes and not showing any seriousness for the Bargarh-Padampur-Nuapada railway line project. Considering the heat generated by the campaigning of the BJP, the BJD has announced that CM Naveen Patnaik would hit the campaign trail from December 2. BJP’s charge that the BJD Government in the State had been completely apathetic in providing insurance benefits to the farmers of Padampur under the PM Fasal Bima Yojana was tackled by the BJD when CM Patnaik declared Rs 200 crore input subsidy package for the farmers of the State who bore the brunt of drought last year. The BJP countered the BJD move when Union Minister Pradhan took up the crop insurance matter with Union Agriculture Minister Tomar, leading to the instant release of money under the scheme. While the BJP-BJD blame game created confusion as to where lay the loopholes for the long denial of crop insurance money to the farmers, the BJP fielded Agriculture Minister Tomar for addressing a rally in Padampur where the Union Minister corroborated the allegation that the Odisha Government be blamed for the plight of the farmers.  Then it was the turn of Railway Minister Aswini Vaishnaw who also fired salvos at the BJD Government for delaying in handing over land to his Ministry for starting the Bargarh-Padampur-Nuapada railway project. “Hand over land today and the project shall start tomorrow,” challenged Vaishnaw at a rally.

Rajya Sabha MP and BJD’s Padampur byelection incharge Prasanna Acharya however gave a fiery response to the Railway Minister’s charge saying that the Railways had never asked for land to the State and dared the Minister to show if they have any letter in this connection. Acharya said, “For any project, there is a process to ask for land,” clarifying that election rally is certainly not the right forum. On the contrary, he showed a letter which said the Railway Ministry was rather considering the project as not viable and wanted the same to be shelved. The IT raids on four businessmen of Padampur who are supporters of the BJD and hours later, a State GST team’s raids on the business establishments of a BJP leader and his relatives’ in as many as nine places across Bargarh hotted up the campaigning yet more. The tit-for-tat policy of the BJD against the BJP added much grist to the mill as the two parties accused each other of being revengeful and resorting to actions for defaming each other ahead of the bypoll. FIR was also lodged against BJP MLA Kushum Tete and several others for obstructing the GST team and creating a melee while the raids were underway against the BJP leader.