Bhubaneswar, Jan 31 (AMF exclusive) on behalf of Congress Former union minister and Congress leader Srikant Jena charged the Odisha and central governments for grabbing credit for IOC’s Rs.34,555 crore refinery project at Paradip in the state and which is going to be inaugurated by prime minister Modi on coming 7th of February.
on the other hand ruling BJD in the state is in a big hurry to show up its strength to prime minister and in a clear mood to convey the message that in odisha only BJD and Naveen matters; none else. In a shadow war between BJD and BJP, the ruling party in Odisha scored it’s first goal when it removed photographs of union minister Dharmendra Pradhan from IOCL hording, citing supreme court’s recent judgment. Dharmendra Pradhan got another shock when his photographs appeared in the media with a known criminal in Cuttack.
Congress alleges that Odisha government, led by Naveen Patnaik, was actually responsible for delaying the project causing Rs.5,000 crore in cost overruns.
“Both BJP and BJD are now trying to capitalise on the project and competing with each other to bring maximum people to the meeting venue to be addressed by Modi and Naveen Patnaik,” said Srikant Jena.
While Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation of the refinery in 2000 when he was prime minister, the project had been conceived way back by the Congress government led by P.V. Narasimha Rao.
Now all three major political parties are trying to take credit from this project forgetting the reality that it has been a public funded project and credit only goes to people of the land.
Prasanta Patnaik