Just the day after the BJP brought allegations against BJD chief Naveen Patnaik for playing minority card, three BJD leaders of the district, contesting in the Thursday’s simultaneous elections, appeared together inside a Gurudwara here on Monday, along with their supporters.
Not withstanding the fact that it was a day of an auspicious occasion for the Sikh community, many eyebrows were raised when BJD lS candidate Bhartruhari Mahtab and two Assembly candidates of the party, Debashis Samantray and Pravat Biswal, were together at the same time offering prayers in the Gurudwara at Shikarpur here along with their party supporters.
“The three BJD leaders were never seen earlier offering prayers at the same time even in any of their own places of worship; forget about visiting the places of worship of other religions,” asserted BJP State spokesman Sajjan Sharma, alleging that the BJD leaders were trying to woo the Sikh voters by utilising their places of worship on the very eve of the elections.
There are about five per cent Sikh voters in Cuttack city. Sharma said his party has already questioned about the meeting between Naveen and a Christian religious leader from AP, who subsequently made an appeal to all Christians in the State to vote for the BJD. “We are certainly going to take up the Monday's Cuttack incident with the EC,” Sharma said.