Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Sunday alleged that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had not done enough for the people of the state. He also accused the ruling Biju Janata Dal government of being the Congress party’s “B-team”.
Addressing a national convention of the BJP’s Scheduled Tribes Morcha in Puri, Shah extolled the new direct support scheme for farmers announced in the Budget on February 1. “Rahul Gandhi, who can’t even name any rabi or kharif crop, is mocking the government’s historic ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi’ scheme, which will benefit 10 crore poor farmers of our country,” he said.
Under the BJP government’s Direct Benefit Transfer scheme, money is directly credited into the account of beneficiaries, said Shah. “The Congress, too, had a DBT yojana – Dealer Broker Transfer – where the money was credited into the accounts of the middlemen,” he added.
Shah said people in Odisha were suffering due to the Biju Janata Dal’s poor politics. “The poor and needy people of Odisha have been deprived from the benefits of Ayushman Bharat, implemented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said. “If you want, you can change the name of the scheme, but why are you troubling the poor people of Odisha?”
The Odisha government has refused to take part in the ambitious Ayushman Bharat programme, with Patnaik claiming that the state’s own health insurance plan is better than the Centre’s programme as it covers an extra 50 lakh people.
Shah projected his party as the champion of adisasis, saying the Modi government has raised budgetary allocation for their welfare to Rs 50,000 crore from Rs 30,700 crore made by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, PTI reported.
The love and respect for adivasis is evident from the fact that it has the maximum number of adivasi MPs in Lok Sabha, said Shah, adding that 28 of the 32 adivasi Lok Sabha MPs belong to the BJP.
Shah accused the Patnaik-led government of having neglected the adivasis and failing to utilise funds for the District Mineral Foundation meant for the welfare and development of people in areas hit by mining activities. “The BJD government is like a fused transformer,” he said. “It needs to be changed for the state’s progress.”
Centre’s move to return excess Ayodhya land ‘historic’
Shah on Sunday described as “historic” the Modi government’s move to return the excess land around the disputed site in Ayodhya to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, PTI reported. He asked the Opposition parties to not put up obstacles in the resolution of the Ayodhya land dispute.
On January 29, the Centre had sought the Supreme Court’s permission to return the excess acquired land at the site to the trust that was formed to promote and oversee the construction of a Ram temple.
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, Shah said the BJP wants a grand Ram temple at the site in Ayodhya at the earliest and dared opposition parties to make their stand clear on the issue.
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