Nuapada: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president, Naveen Patnaik, on Friday accused the ruling BJP of “cheating” people by making “false promises” and forming a government. Campaigning for the BJD candidate in the Nuapada by-poll, the BJD chief said the BJP can form a government by making “false promises”, but cannot win the hearts of the people.

“They (BJP) can form a government by telling lies in a deceitful manner, make false promises, indulge in candidate ‘chori’, but cannot win the hearts of the people of Nuapada,” the BJD president said at a well-attended public rally here. The former five-time chief minister, who was supposed to start his road shows at Komna and Nuapada area at 11.20 am, could not reach the venue on time due to a delay in getting permission for his chartered flight to take off from Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) in Bhubaneswar.

While BJD youth wing president Chinmay Sahoo alleged that Patnaik’s flight was deliberately delayed in an attempt to disrupt his programmes at Nuapada, BPIA Director Prasanna Pradhan said Patnaik’s flight to Nuapada was delayed by around 25 minutes on Friday due to traffic clearance issues. Pradhan said the pilot of the flight had not submitted the required papers for availing clearance from the authorities.

However, the BJD leader alleged that the flight from BPIA was delayed by nearly 70 minutes. “The delay in granting flight clearance by airport authorities was intentional and aimed at disrupting Patnaik’s road show and public meeting in Nuapada,” Sahoo claimed.

While addressing the meeting, Patnaik did not mention his flight delay but alleged that there was an attempt to foil his previous election meeting at Komna in Nuapada. “On November 3, I came to Komna. They (the BJP) created various obstacles so that people could not reach my meeting. They tried to stop people, but failed. The people came in large numbers, and I thank the people of Komna for that,” Patnaik said. Before reaching the venue of the public meeting, the BJD president took part in 15-km-long road show at Komna and Nuapada areas, where people from differ