Bhubaneswar/Cuttack Aug. 22: The BJP today entrusted three of its Union ministers and two central leaders with organisational responsibilities as the party gears up for the 2019 poll battle. These leaders will see to it that the party meets the target of winning 120 Assembly seats in the state. The party today also prepared a blueprint for the 2019 general poll at the state executive meeting here today.
Union minister of tribal welfare Jual Oram, Union minister of human resources development Prakash Javadekar, Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan and senior BJP leaders Arun Singh and Anil Jain will be in charge of party affairs in the 21 Lok Sabha constituencies of the state.
Oram will be in charge of Sundargarh, Koraput, Aska and Kandhamal, Javadekar will look after Bhubaneswar, Puri, Berhampur and Nabarangpur and Pradhan will be in charge of Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur and Cuttack Sadar. Similarly, Singh will be in charge of Bhadrak, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, and Keonjhar and party's national general secretary Jain will manage party activities in Dhenkanal, Balangir, Bargarh, Sambalpur and Kalahandi.
Jain said: "We will ensure that the party emerges victorious in all these Lok Sabha seats with a huge margin."
At the state-level executive meeting, the party also passed 12-point resolutions keeping the 2019 election in mind. The party decided to target the Odisha government on the mining issue. "The Odisha government is hand in glove with the miners. Though the state had earlier estimated that it would collect Rs 59,000 crore as fine from the mine owners, the state's decision to collect only Rs 17,000 crore is unfortunate," said Pradhan.
Pradhan also targeted chief minister Naveen Patnaik for "indulging in propaganda" and celebrating in a big way after getting an award from a New Delhi-based media house recently.
The war of words between the BJD and the BJP further intensified today over the issue of imposition of Hindi language on non-Hindi speaking states.
Earlier, BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy had posted a copy of Union rural development minister Narendra Singh Tomar's letter on Twitter with the question: "Why are Union ministers forcing Hindi on non-Hindi-speaking Indians? Is this an attack on other languages?"
Today, Tomar and Javadekar, who were in the city, targeted Satpathy saying that he should have asked their chief minister to learn Odia. "It could have been better if he writes in Odia to Naveen Patnaik to learn Odia as he is unable to speak in his mother tongue even after 17 years of being in power," said Javadekar.
However, Satpathy in a tweet said: "How come Shri Tomar writes to colleague in English? And to me in Hindi knowing I am Oriya. Fun or agenda?
In Cuttack, Javadekar attended the fourth convocation of Sri Sri University and said that the central government was trying to bring about improvement in higher education in the country.
