People will vote for me to elect Modi as PM: Oram

Bhubaneswar: Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Jual Oram, who is contesting from Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat, said the people will vote for him to elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed India).

Oram, who is pitted against BJD’s Dilip Tirkey, said he has been fighting from the Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat since 1991, and he was elected five times by the people of his constituency, between 1998 and 2019, except in 2009.

“In the 2009 elections, I was defeated because of my fault. There was some issue in election management,” he said. Oram said he visited 50 panchayats and met people on the ‘Viksit Bharat’ programme and found that Prime Minister Modi’s guarantee is working on the ground. “So we will win this election as people want to make Modi the Prime Minister,” he asserted.

Stating that more than Rs 5,000 crore fund remained unspent in Sundargarh district, the BJP leader alleged that the BJD government is not working to develop the tribal-majority district. Not only in Sundargarh, Odisha government has also failed to provide basic drinking water facilities to the State’s rural population.

While piped water supply connection reached more than 80 per cent of rural households in many States, the performance of Odisha is very poor, since half of its population has been deprived of the facility, he alleged.

As the State government is not cooperating for ‘political’ reasons, the projects, which should have been completed in a year are taking more than three years to get completed, Oram said.

“The BJD government has misled the people that they are giving rice to the people and grabbed the votes. When PM Modi announced free rice for all ration card holders for five years, people of Odisha now realised that Modi is giving them the rice,” Oram said.

Speaking about development works done by NDA government, he said rural roads, electricity and telecom connectivity have been enhanced across the country during the past 10 years. The Centre has initiated a lot of development work in his constituency, he said.

The Bimalgarh-Talcher new railway line project has been taken up, an international hockey stadium has been constructed, a new airport was built in Rourkela and Vande Bharat train service has also been introduced in Rourkela, Oram said.