Bhubaneswar, Feb 8: Congress has slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not uttering anything new for the State.
The people had high expectation from Prime Minister but he has disappointed everyone in the State, PCC president Prasad Harichandan told newsmen here on Sunday. “Modi said nothing new and made no announcements for the State. He also did not make any reference to the demand of State Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Special Category status for the State,” Harichandan said.
The PCC Chief said, “Nearly 1750 people have lost their lands and 150 people have been evicted from their ancestral homes. But it was an irony that Modi didn’t utter a single word for those people but for whom the project couldn’t have come up.”
He said when the foundation for the project was laid in May 2000 by the then Prime Minster AB Vajpayee, it was said that the project will be completed in three years. But the construction started only in 2006 after the UPA government came to power at the Centre, he added.
The UPA also raised the capacity of the refinery project from earlier 6 million ton to 15 million ton, he claimed and added the work was almost complete by March 2014. “But due to enforcement of model code of conduct for the general elections in the country in April that year, the project couldn’t be dedicated to the nation at that time,” he said.
He also denied Modi’s allegation that implementation of projects were delayed during the Congress regime, Harichandan said that NDA government has no history of successfully completing a project anywhere in the country. Harichandan also expressed deep concern over the status of the Biju Patnaik National Steel Institute (BPSI) set up near Puri during the Vajpayee government and said the Prime Minister should have reviewed the status of the institute of national repute.
