Rajya Sabha member and Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM) president Pyarimohan Mohapatra on Sunday alleged that one-third of the Ministers and MlAs of ruling BJD and a few MlAs of the Opposition parties have links with the controversial chit fund firm, Seashore Group.
Mohapatra spilled the beans after he was pulled into a row of having close link with the Seashore by Excise Minister Damador Rout.
Notably, Rout last week had told mediapersons that when Mohapatra was at the helm of affairs in the BJD and was most powerful, the BJD Government was providing patronage to the Seashore Group since its chief was intimate with Mohapatra.
Rout, a known critic of Mohapatra, had alleged that the ponzi group had been awarded contract to manage 11 Government hospitals and several cold storages, besides running certain tourist places with the help of Mohapatra. He said that the Seashore Group got 100 acres of land at Umarkote to set up a maize processing plant in Nabarangpur district because of Mohapatra’s blessing.
However, Mohapatra had pooh-poohed the charges and told that Rout’s allegations had no standing.
This time, however, Mohapatra targeted the Naveen Patnaik Government as a whole and said that many influential Ministers, MlAs and leaders in the ruling BJD got benefitted one way or the other from the Seashore. He said that many Ministers and MlAs received costly presentations from the chit fund firm and urged the CBI to go straight to the Ministers whose departments had signed MoUs with the Seashore for various projects.
Going a step further, Mohapatra said if the CBI asked him to appear before it, he would depose before it and disclose everything to it.