With the Election Commission announcing the poll dates for the Lok Sabha yesterday, political temperatures have started to rise in different parts of the country. In Odisha, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik turned to Cyclone Phailin (a tropical storm that ravaged the state) to kick start his campaign and said that the cyclone and its aftermath would be a political plank in general elections as no mainstream political party or its leader tried to take stock of the situation.
During his address at the women’s meet of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for South Odisha here on Wednesday, Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik said “although during elections leaders of these parties shed tears for people of the State, none of their leaders, including UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and prime ministerial candidate of the BJP Narendra Modi, reached Odisha after the Phailin cyclone to take stock of the situation”.
Naveen Patnaik said that leaders from both the Congress and Bhartiya Janata Party had rushed to help the people in Uttarakhand flood but they failed to replicate the same during the cyclone in Odisha.
He said the Congress-led UPA had also not thought of providing proper assistance to Odisha for relief and restoration work after the devastating cyclone. “During the 1999 super cyclone that had hit the State, the then Congress government in the State had totally mismanaged and failed to meet the needs of the devastated families,” he said.
According to him the management of relief and restoration work after the Cyclone Phailin in October 2013 was a great success of his government which had been acknowledged by international forums including the United Nations (UN).
Cyclone Phailin had made landfall at the Odisha coast on 14th of October last year, uprooting thousands of trees and claiming few lives in Ganjam district of the state, the worst affected by the cyclone. Some of the areas in the district remained without power for more than a month.
Photograph by Raka
