Bhubaneswar, Jan 20 (PTI) Three union ministers - Dharmendra Pradhan, Sadhi Niranjan Jyoti and Sarabananda Sonowal - on Saturday came down heavily on Odisha's BJD government while attending separate programmes in state capital Bhubaneswar.

While Education Minister Pradhan attacked the state government over the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of junior teachers in Odisha, Ayush Minister Sarabananda Sonowal targeted the Biju Janata Dal government for not implementing the Ayushman Bharat Yojana here.

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Pradhan said, "The recruitment process of junior school teachers is now going on. But rules are not being followed. People are protesting on the streets."

Reacting to the charge, BJD general secretary Pranab Prakash Das said: "An agency under the Ministry of Education was assigned for recruitment of junior teachers in Odisha. Does Pradhan want to say that the agency under his own ministry committed irregularities?"

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Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Ministry of Rural Development, Sahvi Niranjan Jyoti alleged that the state government has been hijacking central schemes for political gain of the ruling BJD.

On the sidelines of a programme, Sonowal said, "The state government is not implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme in Odisha. This means that the state government is against its people." BJD MLA Amar Satpathy rejected Sonowal's charges claiming that the people of Odisha are getting better facilities under the state's scheme - the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY). "Odisha is a model for other states. Ayushman Bharat Yojana came after the implementation of BSKY in Odisha," Satpathy said. While attending a programme at the BJP's state headquarters, Jyoti alleged that the BJD government has been misleading women self-help groups in Odisha. Claiming that voters of self-help groups are being used politically by the BJD, she asked Odisha's BJP leaders to counter that. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given us a target to create two crore lakhpati didis. There are many such didis who are earning lakhs of rupees. In the days to come, our didis will be self-reliant," she said. The union minister said she had visited a Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana beneficiary's house in Puri. "I found that 'Biju Awas' is written on the wall of the PMAY beneficiary. The state government shouldn't have done this," she said. Reacting to the allegation, BJD leader and Bhubaneswar Mayor Sulochana Das hit back, saying: "They are now trying to use women as a vote bank in Odisha. They remembered women before elections. Did they forget about empowering women earlier?"

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)