Odisha: BJD Fires Salvos at Modi’s ‘Double Engine’ Chest Thumping, Claims ‘Naveen Engine’ Will Prevail

As polls draw closer in Odisha, the most recent Biju Janata Dal (BJD) poster boy, V K Pandian, has taken a combative stance against the Narendra Modi dispensation at the Centre.

 Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, too, has become aggressive during his recent campaign, urging the people to vote for BJD as it is the “only alternative” for the state’s welfare, no matter what its rivals say.

Going a step ahead, bureaucrat-turned-politician Pandian, in some of his recent campaign speeches, has declared that only the “Naveen Engine in Odisha” will prevail in the state and there will be no ascendancy of any other “double engine” (the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign).

Thus, the last vestiges of any hidden thaw between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Odisha Chief Minister slowly seem to have paled into insignificance.

 As the polls near, Patnaik’s language has become more stinging, as he said, without naming BJP that, the rivals had got scared by the series of welfare schemes launched by the BJD in the state.

Pandian appears more frontal in his campaign as he has been listing measures taken by the Patnaik-led government that have put the ‘double engine’ governments in very poor light. In his tirade, he has specifically named the ‘double engine’ (DE) governments in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh etc., where the old age pension range within Rs.300, while under the Madhu Babu Pension scheme, old-aged persons, disabled and widows, get Rs 1,000 under the ‘Naveen engine’ (NE) government.

 Pandian, the IAS officer-turned-BJD leader, has been diabolic in his attacks on Ayushman Bharat Yojana as well, saying that while the DE government made an allocation of Rs 6,000 crore, in which Odisha gets Rs.300 crore only, the NE government under Patnaik alone had made an allocation for the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojna of Rs. 5,000 crore.

Addressing a hug gathering, Pandian said the people had to decide whether it is NE which is more beneficial for them or not.

 “All the schemes under the DE become active during the election just for votes while, schemes launched by the NE government are perennial and pro-people, not merely sloganeering for elections” he said.  

 Pandian, who is spearheading the election campaign on behalf of his boss, Naveen Patnaik, said: “Almost all the states run by DE governments are reeling under critical financial conditions and their economies have run backward to almost 20 years”.   

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Odisha.