Congress manifesto offensive: BJD

BHUBANESWAR: The BJD has requested the State Election Commission (SEC) to issue a peremptory direction to the OPCC for  withdrawal of the manifesto, released by it for the panchayat polls, describing it  as offensive. A delegation led by BJD MP from Puri Pinaki Mishra on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to State Election Commissioner Ajit Kumar Tripathy seeking an early decision in this regard.The manifesto is a brazen contravention of various provisions of the model code of conduct issued by the SEC, particularly  various clauses of chapter-I, II, V and IX A read with the Odisha Gram Panchayat Act, 1964, and IPC 1860, it said.The memorandum said the description of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as abhijukta (accused) is completely unwarranted as he has never been an accused in any legal case in his political career. There have been only frivolous and unsubstantiated allegations, borne out of pure political malice, made from time to time since the Opposition has been unable to digest his popularity in election after election, it said.The document unfortunately contains extremely offensive language, particularly against the Chief Minister, and pictorial images of the Chief Minister, which are inappropriate in the course of a public discourse and election campaign, it said.The promise for devolution of all 29 subjects in the 11th Schedule of the Constitution to panchayats belies the fact that Odisha under Naveen’s leadership had already delegated 21 subjects which have been implemented without compromising on the administrative structure of the State, the memorandum added. It observed that Odisha’s record is far better than that of some Congress-ruled states like Haryana, BJP-ruled states like Chhattisgarh and Gujarat and other states, including UP, which have transferred 10, six, 14 and 12 subjects to panchayats respectively.The memorandum maintained that the promise on page 9 of the manifesto seems to falsely insinuate that the State has not implemented/transferred any subject as yet and the Congress will entirely remedy this situation if and when it comes to power.