Odisha civic polls: All eyes on Berhampur Corporation

Chief Minister lines up 11 meetings in Berhampur 

KV Singh Deo leads BJP poll campaign in Berhampur

Former Union Minister Chandrasekhar Sahu spearheading Congress campaign

With only three days remaining for the campaign to end for the urban civic polls, political parties are leaving no stones unturned to woo the voters as the results will indicate the preference of the electorate in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

All eyes are on the election to the prestigious Berhampur Municipal Corporation as the ruling BJD, BJP and the Congress have much at stake. The importance Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has accorded to the polls can be gauged from his hectic campaign schedule since September 5. He will address as many as 11 meetings in Berhampur city on Monday to give a boost to the chances of BJD candidates. The BJD has fielded candidates in 39 out of 40 wards of the corporation.

Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Surjya Narayan Patro, who is camping along with three other ministers - Kalpataru Das, Bikram Arukha and Usha Devi - and half a dozen MLAs and senior leaders of the BJD at Berhampur, was confident that the BJD will retain the corporation.

The Congress camp, which was banking on Union minister and Telugu superstar K Chiranjeevi to campaign for the party candidates in Berhampur and other urban bodies in Ganjam district, has been disheartened as his programme has been cancelled. Former Union minister Chandrasekhar Sahu, who is spearheading Congress campaign in Berhampur, however, said the Congress has a good chance to win. Two former OPCC presidents, Niranjan Patnaik and Sarat Patnaik, also campaigned for party candidates in Berhampur. All-India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and Odisha in-charge B K Hariprasad will arrive in Berhampur to campaign in the BMC on September 17.

Meanwhile the BJP president KV Singh Deo lead the campaign in Berhampur visiting every ward for mobilizing support in the city.  Referring to the “utter failure of the Government” in ensuring welfare programmes for the denizens of this historic Silk City,  Singh Deo said that though the Chelligada Water Project was recommended by him as Minister to the Centre for approval in 2007, it is yet to be implemented for supply of drinking water to Brahmapur. Similarly, though the Chief Minister laid the foundation-stone of a Sanskruti Bhavan at Brahmapur in 2009, it is yet to be executed.

Recalling the agitations over the scarcity of drinking water in Berhmapur and inadequate water for farmers of Ganjam district for irrigation and demand for interlinking of rivers Rushikulya and Mahanadi, Singh Deo said the State Government has put such citizen-centric proposals in cold storage. Singh Deo further pointed out that as many as 46 faculty positions at the Khallikote Autonomous College and 40 faculty positions at the MKCG Medical College are lying vacant for years. Source: The New Indian Express