A day after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched a blistering counterattack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi questioning his track record on key promises and initiatives and commitment to preserving Odia culture and language, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan slammed him saying “it (his statement) lacks substance as the real issue of poverty amidst plenty, migration and Odia self-identity remains unanswered”.

It’s pertinent to note here that Modi, speaking at poll rallies in Odisha on Saturday, launched a broadside against the regional party satrap questioning Patnaik’s lack of grip over governance and administration saying that “CM cannot name districts and their headquarters without reading from a text”.

Mocking at Patnaik’s video-recorded statement to counter PM’s charges, Pradhan said, “The CM is surrounded by a group of non-Odia’s to whom he has outsourced the government and party. These people give him a script and Naveen Patnaik reads it out”.

“I am well known to people of Odisha over the past 24 years, but you (PM) seem to have forgotten Odisha,” Patnaik said in a video message hours after Modi launched a diatribe against him yesterday.

Reacting to Patnaik’s charges of the Centre doing precious little towards the growth of Odia language and culture, Pradhan said, “The Institute of Indian Languages had requested the CM to provide land for a Classical Odia centre and the state government sat over it for five years and then allotted a house”.

Refuting the charges, Pradhan speaking to reporters in Sambalpur on Sunday, said, “It’s the centre which provided engineering books in Odia language, Odisha research centre.”

Highlighting the Modi Government’s focus on Odia culture, he said: “in 2015 PM Modi celebrated Utkal Divas in Rourkela. He (PM) gave Rs 50 crore for the Nabakalebar of Lord Jagannath and 49 Odia people received Padma awards”.

He further charged the Odisha government with stalling the proposed Paika Memorial as well as the Coastal Highway project.

Stepping up his attack on CM Patnaik, he questioned “Who is responsible for the missing keys of Ratna Bhandra, who conspired to stall the Puri Rath Yatra in 2020?”

Stating that Odisha is getting over Rs 50,000 crore by way of auction of mines due to Modi’s government’s policy to financially empower the State governments, he said the CM’s demands for revision of coal royalty carries no weight.

BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda, the Lok Sabha candidate fighting polls from Kendrapara seat, also took a swipe at Patnaik’s video-recorded statement to counter PM Modi. “It is extremely sad to see Odisha’s CM being manipulated like a puppet by his ex-bureaucrat, now “politician” handler”, Panda ridiculed in ‘X’ handle.

It was an AI-generated ‘video message’. There is a heaven-and-hell difference between the video and the rare public appearances that the CM makes. People have a right to know who is telling them what, Panda concluded in the message.