Opposition indulging in petty politics: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik

BHUBANESWAR: With both the Congress and BJP intensifying their stir against the state government, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today accused the opposition parties of indulging in "petty politics".

"The fact that opposition parties are indulging in petty politics shows how frustrated they are," Patnaik said while addressing party leaders before BJD's padayatra (march) programme from October 2 till October 11.

"We will not allow any of those to impact our development programme. The people in every village should be made aware about this," Patnaik told the State Level Monitoring Committee constituted to ensure success of the party's padayatra programme.

Stating that the BJD was committed in protecting the interests of Odisha, Patnaik said, "We will not tolerate any discrimination. We should highlight how, in spite of funds cut and closure of schemes by the Central government, we are implementing programmes from our own resources".

The ruling party, which organises the Padayatra every year since its inception, has appointed above 120 observers to ensure that the CM's message reaches the villagers.

The BJP state unit today announced a day-long rally in all 147 Assembly segments on Oct 2 to highlight the failures of the state government and decided to organise a satyagrah on Oct 2, to counter BJD's march.

The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee has also said it would hold a parallel march on October 2 to counter BJD's programme.

The Congress said its march would start on Gandhi Jayanti and continue till March 2016 in ten phases.