(From top) Niranjan Patnaik, Surya Narayan Patro and Bhupinder Singh

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 3: The Congress today sought the governor’s intervention to prevent “politicisation of relief distribution” in the flood-hit areas and demanded a special Assembly session to discuss the flood situation.

“We sought the governor’s intervention to prevent politicisation of relief distribution and instead ensure adoption of fair and impartial approach by the government machinery,” said Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik, who led a party delegation and met governor M.C. Bhandare today.

“The state government has miserably failed in dealing with the emergent situation arising out the floods. Even after a week of the current spell of floods, relief materials could not reach large number of victims in various affected areas,” said Patnaik.

“The ruling party workers are distributing the government relief materials.They are shamelessly using their party symbols printed on the relief packets. The flood victims are subjected to discrimination on political considerations.”

“Even the elected representatives belonging to other political parties are being ignored. There are also instances of sarpanchs of other political parties being assaulted by the BJD supporters in presence of government officials. This exposes the ruling party’s true colours.”

However, refuting the allegations, Orissa’s disaster management minister Surya Narayan Patro asserted that relief distribution was being carried out in a fair and neutral manner. “The Congress should not politicise the plights of people,” he said.

While the Congress delegation blamed the faulty management of water discharge from the Hirakud and Rengali reservoir for the floods in the Mahahandi and Brahmani systems, Patro claimed that water discharge from the two reservoirs had been made as per the rule curve.

Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh (Congress) demanded convening of a special Assembly session to take stock of the flood situation and monitor the relief and restoration measures.

However, rejecting the demand, Patro said: “The winter session is scheduled to be held next month. The MLAs should rather devote more time in the flood-hit areas of their respective constituencies and help the administration in relief and restoration works.”