The Odisha Pradesh Congress on Thursday launched the “Gandhi Pathee” from the Maoist-hit tribal belt of Malkangiri district of southern Odisha on Gandhi Jayanti.
The year-long padyatra will touch every nook and corner of the state. However, it will halt briefly during the campaign for the Nuapada bypoll in western Odisha.
Party spokesperson Amiya Pandav said: "The Congress has named the Yatra as Gandhi Pathee. It is Mahatma Gandhi whose name is intimately attached to padyatras. Through them, he was successful in raising various socio-economic issues."
Launching the programme from Motu block, Odisha Congress president Bhakta Charan Das said: "This padyatra aims to protect the interests of the state and its people. We are committed to protect the interest of the women, the segment completely neglected by the BJP government."
Chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi garlanded the statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the state Assembly. Majhi also asked people to buy handloom products.
Leaders of Odisha's main Opposition party, the Biju Janata Dal, garlanded the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on his birth anniversary. However, keeping in view Dussehra celebrations, it deferred its month-long Jana Samparka Padyatra to October 9.
Taking a dig at the Mohan Majhi government, BJD vice-president Debi Prasad Mishra said: “While promising to make Odisha free of alcohol and drugs, the BJP government is now opening 70 new liquor shops and two liquor factories. This is an example of double standard. It should be exposed.”
Mishra said: "Farmers in the state are on the road today due to lack of fertilisers. The government has committed mass murder of democracy by curtailing the powers of elected representatives at the panchayat level."
During its Jana Samparka Padyatra, the BJD will highlight the "failures" of the 15 months of BJP rule in the state. “The state government has failed in all areas. It came to power by giving false assurances, it has failed to keep its promises. The law and order in the state has deteriorated and crimes against women are on the rise,” said BJD’s chief whip Pramila Mallick.