Other States - Orissa   

Utkal Bharat in agitation mode

BERHAMPUR: The newly-formed ‘Utkal Bharat’ party has decided to take up agitation throughout the State to protest against the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and provision of subsidised rice at Rs. 2-a-kg to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.

Most other political parties in the country do not have any grudge against these two pro-poor schemes although they have remarks regarding their implementation.

But going against the flow, the ‘Utkal Bharat’ has decided to make its opposition to these two schemes as its main plank for support mobilisation. The new regional party has been launched by former Bharatiya Janata Party MP, Kharabela Swain.

Mr Swain claims his aim is to make his party stand out from the major political parties in Orissa like Biju Janata Dal (BJD), BJP and the Congress.

Speaking to newsmen during his visit to the city, Mr Swain said his party decided to educate people of Orissa how populist political measures like MGNREGA and subsidised rice at extreme low price were detrimental to the economy and the masses in the long run.

“Politicians promote these self-proclaimed pro-poor schemes only to garner votes without thinking of the future of economy of a state and the country as a whole,” he said.

Mr Swain said in an agrarian State like Orissa both these schemes have been detrimental to the agriculture. Owing to these schemes, it has become hard to get agricultural labour in rural areas, he said.

Paddy production had come down as rice was being sold at a price quite lower than the procurement price of paddy. The subsidised rice was being recycled through the market through a vicious circle which was creating black money for politicians and bureaucrats, he alleged. According to him these two schemes were only entangling the BPL families in the vicious circle of poverty. The party also alleged that one of the causes of price rise in the country was these two schemes.

Mr. Swain termed MGNREGA as ‘National Corruption Yojana’ which was one of the major generators of black money from grass root level up to the political and bureaucratic bosses at the top.

He said he himself and his party would take up protest demonstrations at all blocks of the State to make people realise the ‘reality’ behind the so-called pro-poor schemes.

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