BJD's Baijayant Panda reminds Naveen Patnaik of the “rots†setting in the party

BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha unit of Bharatiya Janata Party is now elated with dissensions among leaders of the ruling BJD headed by chief minister Naveen Patnaik reaching the boiling point.

The saffron party on Tuesday predicted that time had come for the BJD to collapse under its own weight and the BJP was all set to assume power in Odisha. The BJP leaders’ joy knew no bounds after an article by BJD’s high-profile Lok Sabha member Baijayant Panda appeared on Tuesday in a leading Odia daily in which he reminded the CM Naveen Patnaik of the “rots” setting in the party and people distancing themselves from it. In a blunt expression of his thought, Panda said people have started comparing the last three years of the present state government with the Congress government that ruled the state from 1995-2000.

“The Congress rule from 1990 to 1995 was marked by corruption in the administration and patronisation and protection of anti-socials across the length and breadth of the country. Now people have started comparing our last three years with the Congress government of later 1990S,” he said.

Panda also cited the BJD’s poor show in the recently held rural polls as a fallout of the BJD’s declining popularity and called upon the chief minister Naveen Patnaik for “self-introspection.”

“We have been alleging that corruption has pervaded the administration and the state has plunged into lawlessness under the present government. Now, our allegation stands vindicated. What Baijayant Pana has written in the article is the naked truth,” said BJP Legislature Party (BJPLP) leader.