Bhubaneswar/Sambalpur: The BJD and the BJP on Sunday continued to trade charges on the controversial Mahanadi water issue.

The BJD said the state BJP unit's pledge to protect Odisha's interest on the Mahanadi issue was only a pretension.

"Scared of the BJD's ongoing agitation and continued public support on the Mahanadi issue, the BJP has been forced to talk in a different tone," the BJD said on Sunday.

The BJD's reaction comes in the wake of Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan's statement that he was with the people Odisha on the Mahanadi water issue and would extend his help to chief minister Naveen Patnaik to protect the state's interests.

In Sambalpur, Pradhan said: "We are with the cause of the state. I was the first man to react in favour of the state, when Chhattishgarh chief minister Raman Singh issued a strong statement on the Mahanadi barrage."

He said: "The inter-state dispute can be resolved through a dialogue for which I have already told the Chhattishgarh government to initiate the process. The Odisha chief minister should talk to his Chhattishgarh counterpart on the issue. Besides, as the tribunal has initiated its proceedings on the issue, let us wait and see."

Senior BJD leaders hit back at Pradhan on Sunday.

BJD general secretary Sanjay Das Burma said: "We are raising the issue since 2016. But Pradhan has been changing his stand time and again. We are happy that he is now talking of protecting state's interest."

Das Burma said: "If he wants to protect the interests of Odisha, he should impress on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who should advice the Chhattisgarh government to stop all constructions on the upper stream of the Mahanadi till the issue is settled in the tribunal."

BJD's Rajya Sabha MP Soumya Ranjan Patnaik said: "Though the state is represented by two cabinet rank ministers at the Centre, they have utterly failed to protect the interests of Odisha on Mahanadi."

Additional reporting by Subhas Panigrahi in Sambalpur