The Pradesh Student Congress has brought a serious allegation that BJP State leaders have misappropriated hundreds of crores of rupees of seven petro companies of the country in the name of publication of advertorial books.
“An unregistered trust was formed under the guidance of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and other BJP leaders for publication books. Oil petro companies like IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, GAIL, ONGS, OIL and EIL have paid over Rs 100 crore for publication of advertisements. However, only 50 books of very low quality have been published by the trust,” alleged Pradesh Student Congress president Itish Pradhan at a Press meet here on Wednesday.
Pradhan further alleged that the petro companies violated all norms as they gave advertisements to the books which were of only two months’ old and published without publisher and printer names.
Stating that a magazine brought to the fore the misappropriation, he said he too collected some data in support of the allegation. After the wrongdoing came to the fore, Pradhan resigned as the head the Odisha Tribal and Rural Tourism Cooperative Society and handed over the charge to BJP Bhubaneswar president Harekrushna Khuntia. This organisation has taken over Rs 50 crore towards cost of advertisement and evaded taxes,” alleged Pradhan.
Pradhan alleged that over Rs 500 crore belonging to the seven petro companies have been looted in the name of advertisement and banners and posters.