Bhubaneswar: Controversial lawmaker Prasanta Kumar Jagadav, who won from the Khurda Assembly constituency in the recently-concluded polls on a BJP ticket, Monday caused an apparent embarrassment to the party’s state leadership when he said that affairs in the state will henceforth be ‘remote-controlled’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “You know Modiji’s style. We may be ministers or MLAs here. But the remote control is in the hands of Modiji. The remote control will work from Delhi,” said Jagadev, who had switched over to the saffron camp from BJD before the elections.
Speaking to reporters, Jagadev said Odisha is set to become the number one state in the country as predicted by Modi. “You have already seen Modiji’s words coming true,” Jagadev said in a reference to the Prime Minister’s forecast of imminent victory for the BJP in the Assembly polls. “And, I don’t find it an impossibility,” he added. Elaborating, Jagadev said Odisha suffered from the ‘tradition’ of being a ‘rich state with poor people.’ “Even Biju Patnaik had reiterated the same thing while demanding fiscal autonomy for the state to elevate its standards. Now, the double engine BJP governments (at Centre and state) will facilitate in realising it,” he said. Taking a dig at the previous BJD dispensation, he said the biggest achievement of the new government in the days after it came to power has been the destruction of “officer raj” which created a divide between people and the government by preventing entry of common people to even tehsil and block offices, not to mention the Secretariat. “Now, the doors of the CM’s Office has been thrown open, so are the gates of the Jagannath temple. Even a common man can meet the CM with his grievances,” he said, adding, “This is the first impression of the government, which will last long, as they say.” He said the response, body language and manners of officials have undergone a drastic charge within 24 hours after the government took charge “even before the allocation of departments.” “We are happy for the change. Moreover, it was necessary. This is because the government and administration should work hand in hand without any oneupmanship,” he said.