While most of the Ministers and ruling BJD MlAs have been denied their Puja vacation and asked to work hard to ensure the victory of the party candidate in the bypoll for the Kandhamal lok Sabha seat, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will be spending his Puja holidays in New Delhi.
Patnaik, who left for the national Capital on Thursday on a six-day visit, is scheduled to return here on October 7.Patnaik’s itinerary this time has been kept a closely guarded secret by his office.
Sources, however, said the Chief Minister would be a guest at a function of the Capital Foundation Society of New Delhi and meeting several Union Ministers to place certain demands of the State before them. He is also likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 6.But by all accounts, this is not going to be a pleasure trip for the BJD supremo, sources said.The political circles here are agog with speculations that the most compelling reason for Patnaik to visit Delhi for six days at a stretch when his party is faced with a tough bypoll challenge is to strike a truce with the BJP and Prime Minister Modi and make sure the CBI team, inquiring into the chit fund scam, does not reach his doorstep.
The fact that a CBI inquiry into the coal scam has been kept open under court directions is also a reason for his worries, the sources said. The Chief Minister is deeply perturbed over reports that senior bureaucrats, police officers and party leaders close to him are likely to be implicated in the Seashore chit fund fraud.