BHUBANESWAR/BALANGIR: A day after Narendra Modi accused the state government of escalating the Mahanadi dispute, his party colleague Bijoy Mohapatra on Sunday said the Prime Minister should have spoken on Chhattisgarh's illegal and unilateral constructions upstream of the river. These, the state government contends, have affected the flow of the river downstream."The Mahanadi is a sensitive matter here. The people of the state could not get a firm commitment from Modi on the river dispute. I don't see the Mahanadi tribunal starting work in the next six months. It seems justice will be delayed for Odisha," Bijoy told the media here. The senior BJP leader said the Mahanadi tribunal was constituted following a Supreme Court order, even though the Centre had opposed it earlier.Addressing a public rally in Cuttack on Saturday to mark the completion of four years of his government, Modi accused the BJD government of misleading the people on the river dispute with Chhattisgarh. In a sharp attack on Naveen, Modi said that when the Centre took the initiative to resolve the problem, the state developed cold feet. "The state government has conceded in the assembly that more than 50 per cent of the river flows into the Bay of Bengal," he said.The ruling party termed Modi's statement as untrue and aimed at confusing people. "Union minister Nitin Gadkari had proposed to resolve the issue through dialogue. The Prime Minister's statement on the Mahanadi was misleading," said BJD spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Prasanna Acharya Leader of the opposition, Congress 's Narasingha Mishra also criticized both the state and the Centre for doing politics on the Mahanadi. Addressing a news conference in Balangir, Mishra said both governments had betrayed the people of the state by sympathizing with industrialists, not farmers. "It is ridiculous to say over 50 per cent of the river flows into the Bay of Bengal. He should know that at least 30 per cent of a river should be allowed to flow into the sea for ecological health," Mishra said.

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