“Ama Odisha’ promises alternative to BJD, Cong in state: Soumya Ranjan

Basudevpur:
‘Ama Odisha’ founder Soumya Ranjan Patnaik on Sunday called for a political
alternative in the state in which the fate of leaders is decided by voters and
not by party bosses.

Addressing
an impressive rally here this afternoon, Patnaik launched into a scathing
attack on the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) saying the state cannot be run with
‘servants’ and ‘government servants’ as is the case presently. While ministers
take pride in calling themselves ‘servants’ of the party supremo, government
servants wield real power in the present dispensation, he said.

Lambasting
the BJD government for its strategy of bribing voters with sops like allowances
and pensions, highly subsidised rice, free blanket and, free bicycles, Patnaik
said voters are not ‘vegetables’, who can be ‘bought’ with money. Elections
should be fought and won by winning the trust of the voters with schemes and
programmes keeping the long term interests of the voters and the state in mind,
he added.

“Gandhiji
had said that real independence will come when a woman can walk on the streets
at midnight without any fear. But look at the reality. A woman is raped every
six hours in the state. The time has come to ponder if we have really got
independence,” said Patnaik.

Taking
the BJD government to task for its propensity to invite ‘looteras’ from all
over the world to loot the rich mineral reserves of the state, he said real
development in the state is possible only with the development of the
agriculture sector since an overwhelming majority of the population is
dependent on this sector. “But the BJD government could not care less about the
farm sector and is focussing all its attention on industrialisation for reasons
that are all too obvious. Even in industrialisation, the government has never
bothered about promoting real industry like tourism, which can create jobs,” he
said.

Dubbing
the present government a ‘signboard government’, the founder of the newly
launched party pointed to the blood bank at Basudevpur, which was inaugurated
several years ago but is still not functional. “This government has fooled the
people of the state for 13 years with false promises and downright lies. The
latest in the series of lies perpetrated by the government is the Revenue
minister’s statement on the august floor of the state Assembly about Central
assistance for rehabilitation work in areas affected by Cyclone Phailin and the
subsequent floods. Having received Rs 1, 000 crore from the Centre, the
government sought to hoodwink the people by claiming that it had received only
Rs 250 crores,” he said.

Turning
his attention to the two national parties, Patnaik said while the fate of local
leaders is decided by the mother-son duo of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in
the Congress, Narendra Modi calls all the shots in the BJP. “There is a need
for a party where local level leadership emerges from among the people and not
at the whims and blessings of national leaders,” he said.

Tracing
the evolution of ‘Ama Odisha’ as a political party from an organisation that
promoted Odia language and culture and blood donation, Patnaik said the idea
was to present the people of the state a viable political alternative that is
not beholden to the supreme leader, but has the interests of the people at
heart.

“Ama
Odisha promises to give the people freedom – from hunger, unemployment and
fear,” he said.

Earlier,
the ‘Ama Odisha’ founder was brought to the meeting venue in an impressive
procession. This was the third rally organised in the state after Birmaharajpur
and Salepur after ‘Ama Odisha’ became a political party.