Puri BJD MP Pinaki Misra has come under severe criticism from his party leaders for his praise of Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan at a public meeting.
Misra, while attending a meeting on promotion of the Union Government’s Mudra scheme here on Saturday, had profusely complimented Pradhan as a “hardworking and competent” Minister looking after his Ministry admirably. “Even Dharmendrababu’s worst critics will concede this fact,” he remarked.
In view of the BJP high command’s projection of Pradhan as the Odisha leader vis-à-vis BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, two BJD leaders on Sunday slammed Misra for his alleged impolitic remarks.
BJD MlA Debashis Samantaray, who is known to be close to Naveen Patnaik, termed Misra’s pro-Pradhan utterances as “anti-party”. Pradhan is in fact a nonperforming Minister, who has taken the country’s economy backward, he said.
BJD vice-president and Minister Damodar Rout had much harsher comments against Misra. Stating that Dharmendra Pradhan is against interests of Odisha, Rout sarcastically said Misra is now “fond” of Pradhan as he was fond of Chandraswami and Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi.
Rout’s remark obviously referred to Misra’s past links with Delhi-based self-styled Baba Chandraswami and previous allegiance to the Congress when he was elected from the Puri Parliamentary constituency as Congress candidate in the 1996 general elections.
Political observers wonder how Pinaki Misra, reportedly a confidant of Naveen Patnaik, chose to heap praises in full public glare on Dharmendra Pradhan, who is tipped in the BJP circles as alternative to Patnaik in the Odisha politics.