BJD's 'betrayal' to be BJP's major poll plank

The betrayal meted out by the Biju Janta Dal (BJD) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be one of the major poll planks in the upcoming Assembly elections in Orissa, said senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj.

Addressing the media here at the BJP party office, she said, “The BJD has betrayed our party twice in Orissa, first by snapping the eleven year old alliance and then by taking five of our party’s legislators. The electorate in Orissa would give a befitting reply to the BJD for its betrayal.”

Apart from the BJD’s betrayal, other state specific issues like poverty, large scale displacement of people and loot of mineral resources from the state would be the other issues for the Assembly elections in the state.

Swaraj further said that in the aftermath of the snapping of the BJD-BJP alliance in Orissa, the BJP would now voice its grievances on the Kandhamal riots in the public adding, “While we were a part of the alliance, we kept our grievances within for the sake of coalition dharma.”

Asked if the BJP had projected any chief ministerial candidate for Orissa for the ensuing Assembly polls, she said , The BJP Parliamentary Board would take a decision on whether to project a chief ministerial candidate for the state or not.

On the national level, Swaraj said that the three major issues for the BJP would be inflation, terrorism and loss of employment under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule and expressed confidence that the NDA would be voted to power in the Lok Sabha elections.

Earlier addressing the party workers, she accused the UPA government at the Centre for taking away bread of the common man, adopting soft attitude on the issue of extremism and taking a stand that Lord Ram was not born in India.

Launching the tirade against the UPA in the Vijay Sankalp Samavesh organised in Bhubaneswar, the fire brand BJP leader came down heavily on the government due to high rise in the price of essential commodities like rice and dal.

“The UPA claims congress ka hath, aam admi ka sath but the reality is that it never catches the common man. The disappearance of dal costing Rs 80 per kilogram, from the meals of the common man is an instance of it”, Swaraj said.

Criticizing the UPA government for adopting a soft attitude on the issue of extremism, she said, when countries like US, France are framing new regulations to tackle terrorism, the UPA government abolished the POTA stating it as anti-Muslim.

Similarly, the UPA government has caused the damage to the religious feeling of the Hindus by submitting an affidavit before the Supreme Court stating that Lord Ram was not born in India and it was only an imagination.