Bhubaneswar, March 26: Senior BJD leader and agriculture minister Damodar Rout might have triggered a potential political controversy with a statement that he made at a seminar on Centre’s neglect of Orissa.

“I never said that the Centre has neglected Orissa,” said Rout speaking at the seminar, organised by a local TV channel.

The statement runs contrary to the party’s official stand that the UPA government has been neglecting the state on all fronts. The BJD has been running a sustained campaign against the Centre on the issue.

“It has become a tendency to portray ourselves as poor and ask for money. Orissa is not as poor as many have sought to project it. The state has witnessed a lot of development over the years. However, it is true that more schemes for development of tribals, who constitute the bulk of the state’s population, are required. From that point of view, the expected development has not taken place,” Rout said.

The agriculture minister also sought to differ from the government over the issue of unseasonal rain causing crop loss to farmers. He said, compared to last year, this time an additional 60,000 metric tonnes of rice were procured in Bargarh district.

“Unseasonal rain had created such a scare that grain mandis did not operate in Ganjam. As a result, farmers of the region were forced to sell their surplus paddy yield to businessmen in Andhra Pradesh. I know how our poverty has been exaggerated. We should not always go by the statistics on poverty,” he said.

The BJD veteran also took a swipe at his party colleagues saying that his party was not much different from the Congress as far as the culture of flattery was concerned.

“However, the Congress, which is yet to find a person to replace its present state president, should not be pointing fingers at the BJD and stop lecturing on how the Centre was treating the state,” said Rout.

On Wednesday, the Congress had lambasted the Orissa government for trying to mislead people on the issue of Centre’s neglect of Orissa.

The issue also rocked the Assembly today. But the man in the line of fire was disaster management minister Surya Narayan Patro against whom the Congress moved a privilege notice for trying to mislead the House. The Congress alleged that the minister had been changing his statement over the issue causing confusion in the minds of people.

On Thursday, while replying to a debate on an Opposition-sponsored adjournment motion, Patro claimed that the Centre had not yet released a “single paisa” from the National Disaster Response Fund for the losses caused by drought and unseasonal rain in 2010. Yesterday, he made a volt face in the House stating that central assistance to the tune of Rs 560 crore had been sanctioned this year for the above-mentioned calamities. He even thanked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the gesture.

However, even as Patro denied the charge of misleading the House, Congress chief whip Prasad Harichandan alleged that the minister had lied.