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Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will not attend the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi tomorrow. Instead, state finance minister Pradeep Amat will represent the state government at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, sources in the Chief Minister’s Office said.
Patnaik preferred to be present during the election to the post of Speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly (OLA) on Monday and hence, has decided not to visit New Delhi, they added.
However, there was no clear reason why the Chief Minister decided to skip the ceremony as it is not mandatory for him to be present during the election of Speaker. Political observers said, the Odisha chief minister has perhaps towed the line of his counterparts from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and together with Jayalalitha and Mamata Banerjee, wants to form a pressure group at the Centre.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalitha has hinted that she would not attend the ceremony in protest against the invitation sent to Sri Lankan president for the event. Similarly, Banerjee intends to skip the event and send her representative instead. Odisha, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are the three states where Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has performed badly compared with other states of the country.
Though BJP has a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha, it is assumed that Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Trinamool Congress (TMC) and AIADMK would act as an opposition bloc with their 91 elected MPs, more than the total strength of principal Opposition party Congress (44) in the 545-member house.
Patnaik, who has maintained that BJD would keep equal distance from both BJP and Congress, has however, given green signal to his party MPs to attend the ceremony. In an interview soon after the elections, Patnaik said, he had no personal animosity towards Modi and would like to work with him as Prime Minister.
