Rajya Sabha member Pyarimohan Mohapatra on Friday admitted that his strategy to topple the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD Government exactly three years ago was a mistake. “It was a mistake from my side when I engineered a coup attempt on May 29, 2012, to express my anger towards him (Patnaik) by inviting 33 MlAs to my house,” said the former BJD leader to a TV channel.
“Had I known that he (Patnaik) is such a person, I would rather have preferred to be the Chief Minister of Odisha in 2009 by claiming the support of 85 MlAs who were then my followers,” he claimed, adding that it was another mistake he had committed. Claiming that he currently enjoys the same rapport with almost all the MlAs who had supported him in 2012 to hatch the coup, Mohapatra said they still express their disenchantment with Patnaik’s leadership. “I don’t want to name them (the MlAs), but they are in touch with me,” he said.
When asked about the failure of his Odisha Jan Morcha in rising as a formidable political force, he blamed the Naveen Government for it terming it as a ‘barrier’. “Wherever we went on party work, we were asked to pay money. People even demanded to know that if the BJD can pay us to vote in favour of it, why can’t you,” he said, claiming that due to shortage of funds, his party could not grow.