The cleavage in the State Congress over supporting or not supporting lalatendu Bidyadhar (lulu) Mohapatra’s newfound radicalism is now irrelevant. The party is deadest to step up its attack against the ruling BJD on the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Sanjay Dasburma’s link with chit fund firms.
The Congress meeting on Monday involving heavyweights of the party has focused on its strategy on the issue, especially to build up pressure for termination of Dasburma from the Ministerial berth so that no tampering takes place in providing records and to ensure that the CBI probe is conducted in a fair and transparent way. The party also decided to corner the State Government over the chit fund scam by starting agitation from April 26, the day when the second phase of Assembly session will begin.
The meeting, presided over by PCC president Prasad Harichandan, was attended by senior leaders like Srikant Jena, lulu Mohapatra, Sarat Patnaik and Anant Sethy.
“Documents submitted by Dasburma to the CBI are all of the Transport Department. It can’t be ruled out that he as a Minister could have prepared the documents to suit him. Hence, he should not continue as a Minister for the sake of a fair inquiry,” said Harichandan.
The fact is now clear that the Congress, which was divided over Mohapatra’s egg-hurling tactic and attempt to foist his constituency-centric politics and individual wrath on the broader work plan of the Congress, has now found Mohapatra as a rallying point.
Mohapatra had drawn flak from parties of all hues for this crude confrontation with BJD. The Congress supporters attack BJD Ministers and leaders with eggs with much fanfare at the instance of Mohapatra and were successful to unleash a reign of terror for a time by forcing the ruling party politicians to stay indoors. While BJD had condemned this and even deployed lathi-wielding musclemen around the Ministers’ vehicles as a tit-for-tat to tackle the Congress-supported egg-hurlers, even his own party veterans, including leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra and PCC president Prasad Harichandan, had decried it.
However, with Mohapatra’s own constituency politics and personal grudge against arch rival Dasburma now having provided the trigger for an escalating crisis for the BJD Government at the State level, the Congress does not find anything ‘unethical’ or ‘narrow’ in Mohapatra-Dasburma age-old spat being capitalized as a potential ammunition to blast the BJD house. Needless to say, Mohapatra has turned the blue-eyed boy for his party.
On the contrary, Dasburma and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s silence on the issue, especially after CBI notice to the former, has added fuel to the fire. Dasburma not appearing personally and sending his representatives to the CBI office has also deepened the suspicion about his culpability that the Opposition parties want to lend
credibility. So far, the BJD has been defensive of Dasburma and rubbished the charges as an outcome personal vendetta. BJD spokesperson Amar Satpathy also ruled out the Congress’s contention on the fairness of the CBI probe. “The State Government has been cooperative to the CBI and provided all required logistics for probe in the chit fund scam. So the question of influencing the probe or tampering the process does not arise,” he clarified.