Outspoken Excise Minister Damodar Rout and three BJD MlAs from Cuttack district, Pratap Jena, Debasis Samantray and Pravat Biswal, who are Rout’s enemies in the BJD, met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in his chamber at the State Secretariat here one after another on Thursday morning,
This led to speculations that the Chief Minister might have called them for clarifications over the regular exchanges of acrimonious words between Rout and the MlAs.
The speculations had significance in view of a possible reshuffle of the Ministry by the CM. Jena first entered the CM’s office followed by Samantray and Biswal together. Rout was the last to visit.
Even though mediapersons kept asking Rout, Samantaray and Biswal about why they had met the CM, the two MlAs didn’t say anything. Rout only said he had earlier given a message to the Chief Minister. He didn’t disclose what that message was or what transpired in his two-minute meeting with the CM.
However, Jena, also BJD spokesperson, said the two Cuttack MlAs might have gone to the CM to discuss some issues relating to their constituencies.
“I am not sure if Samantaray and Biswal met the Chief Minister. But they had earlier told me that they would go to discuss some issues of their constituencies,” Jena told reporters.
Notably, Rout, also a party vice-president, had recently termed Samantray and Biswal as “ghosts”. later, however, he softened his remark saying he had thought them to be “ghosts” when he was going in a vehicle by which the CM was travelling in the front seat after a function in Jagatsinghpur district.