Bhubaneswar: Senior BJP leader and Union petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday took an indirect dig at Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik saying the latter remained the well-being of women only when election comes.
Addressing a large gathering while laying foundation stone for LPG cylinder bottling plant and a few other projects at Rayagada in Odisha , Mr Pradhan said the CM had started sending money of about Rs 1,500 to each member of self-help groups in the pretext of enabling them to start their own ventures.
“Some leaders remember women of the state only when election comes and send meager amount of money to them with some ulterior motive.
But, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hails from a very humble background, has seen and realized the problem of rural and poor women. He always thought of and executed some pragmatic programmes, including Ujjwala Yojana, that have brought real women empowerment by providing clean cooking as,” said Mr Pradhan.
He mocked at the CM’s much uttered one-liner ‘Apan Khusita, Mu Bhi Khusi (Are you happy and I’m happy) at his public meetings.
“Some people, without doing anything for you, ask to know from you if you are happy or not. We, however, believe that people will on tell us that they happy if we do something good for them in true spirit,” said Mr Pradhan, without taking the name of the chief minister Mr Patnaik.
He listed out figures on the increase in LPG users in the state. He also highlighted the significant increase in central grants to Odisha. The meeting saw a huge turnout of women who cheered every word of Mr Pradhan.
