Patnaik's 'New Odisha' pitch is an illusion: Dharmendra Pradhan

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday hit out at Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and said that the latter is befooling the people by ensuring them a better future for the state.

Pradhan said that Patnaik's 'New Odisha' pitch is an illusion.

"After ruining the state for past 17 years as a Chief Minister, if a person is saying that he will make New Odisha, then he is betraying the people of the state," Pradhan told ANI.

Pradhan further said that people of Odisha are looking for development and that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expeditiously working towards fulfilling the desired goal.

"A major political change will take place in Odisha in 2019, we are planning for the same. Our party chief Amit shah when last time visited Odisha, gave us an agenda for 2019 and we are trying to make it successful by strengthening 36,000 thousand booths in the state," he said.

"We are sure that even the people of the state want change, we just need to channelize it and the BJP workers are working on the same," he added.

Earlier, Patnaik directed the state and district level officers to work on the lines of Vision Odisha and help the state develop in to a new and progressive entity.