Disgraced Kendrapada BJD Baijayant Panda has now come under pressure from his former party to resign from his lok Sabha seat on grounds of financial impropriety.
This is at a time when an embattled Panda, after his suspension from the party, has begun shows of strength for himself in his constituency and elsewhere though he is apparently getting lukewarm public support. He did not draw respectable numbers of supporters in Kendrapada on Friday. And on Saturday, his show in Puri, where he paid tributes to Biju Patnaikat his Samadhi at the Swargadwar and earlier visited the Jagannath Temple, was much poorer with less than a handful of people accompanied him.
Referring to his suspension from the BJD because of his attacks on the Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Private Secretary at the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) for interference in party affairs, Panda told reporters that had Bijubabu been alive he had supported his (Panda’s) speaking the “truth”.
Asked what would be his next course of political action, Panda said, “Now, I want peace of mind and thereafter I will decide what to do.”
BJD vice-president and an MlA Bed Prakash Agarwal, along with some other MlAs from the Kendrapada lok Sabha constituency including Minister Pratap Jena on Friday asked Panda to resign from MP post on moral and ethical grounds as he has allegedly concealed that he is working as Vice-Chairman of his family’s IMFA company and drawing crores of rupees as salary. Panda takes Rs 1.5 crore per annum from the company, Agarwal said.
Agarwal also accused Panda of submitting false affidavit before the Election Commission during the 2014 general elections.
In his reaction, Panda wondered why after so long years, the BJD found fault with him. “I used to file my nomination papers in consultation with the best lawyers of the country,” Panda said, adding that the law on office of profit is applicable to those who are with Government office and not for those with private office.
Bijubabu and Naveen Patnaik have used his family’s IMFA company helicopter several times, he added.