A former Bijepur BJD MlA, Ashok Panigrahi, on Tuesday dropped a bombshell and made some damaging accusations against the party and its supremo Naveen Patnaik.
Panigrahi said late senior party leader Kalpataru Das had advised him to contest from Bijepur as an Independent candidate in the 2014 Assembly elections on the direction of Naveen Patnaik even though the party had fielded Prasanna Acharya from the constituency. If Das were alive, everything
would have been made clear, he said.
“I told him filing nominations against the party’s candidate would be an anti-party act, but Kalpataru Das told me that it was the BJD supremo’s direction and I should contest as an Independent candidate. However, soon after, I was expelled from the party for anti-party activity,” stated Panigrahi.
He said the BJD had tried its level best to ensure defeat of its own candidate Acharya.
“Subal Sahu spoke a lot against the BJD and even criticised Bijubabu and the Chief Minister (Naveen Patnaik). However, after Sahu’s death, someone from his family getting a BJD ticket for the by-election is unfortunate and sad,” he rued.
The BJD is thinking that by fielding Sahu’s wife as its candidate, it is going to get a chunk of Congress sympathy votes. But the move is going to boomerang, Panigrahi said.
However, Naveen Patnaik categorically denied any direction to Ashok Panigrahi for defeating the party candidate in the 2014 elections. Before leaving for New Delhi on Tuesday on a six-day visit, Patnaik termed the allegations of Panigrahi as “totally untrue”.
BJD spokesperson Debasis Samantaray also refuted the allegation made by Panigrahi, saying the latter has been removed from the BJD after he contested as a rebel candidate against Prasanna Acharya and
now his claim does not have any merit.