Bargarh: Two central ministers- Ashwini Vaishnaw and Narendra Singh Tomar- will campaign for party candidate for the upcoming bypoll to Padampur assembly constituency, BJP sources said.
Vaishnaw, the railway minister, and Tomar, the minister for agriculture and farmers’ welfare, will canvass for the saffron party’s nominee Pradip Purohit on Sunday.
The ministers will highlight how “non-cooperation” from ruling BJD resulted in delay in a railway project and crop insurance payment.
The two central ministers have been inducted in the election campaign for the saffron camp as the BJD raked up issues, such as delay in payment of crop insurance claims by farmers and a proposed rail line connecting Bargarh with Nuapada Road via Padampur, ahead of the December 5 by-election, BJP’s state unit general secretary Golak Mohapatra said.
He also mentioned that BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda and party spokesperson Sambit Patra will also campaign in the poll-bound constituency on Saturday.
In a statement, the saffron party accused the BJD of “misleading people of Odisha, particularly, the voters of Padampur” by raking up the railway project issue ahead of the by-poll, and claimed that crop insurance payment has been delayed by the state’s BJD government as the Centre has “cleared funds”.
During the campaign, Tomar is expected to speak on how “non-cooperation from the state government resulted in the delay in farmers’ crop insurance claim payments, the state BJP functionary said.
Vaishnaw will speak on “how the proposed rail project could not be implemented due to lack of cooperation from the state”, he said.
