Yet another Minister of the Naveen Patnaik Government, Sanjay Kumar Dasburma, got a notice from the Odisha High Court on Friday in a writ petition challenging his election to the Assembly from the Brahmagiri constituency held in April this year.
Earlier the HC had admitted a petition challenging the election of Minister Badri Narayan Patra. Besides Dasburma, laxmipur MlA Kailash Chandra Kulesika (Congress) and Soro MlA Parshuram Dhada (BJD) also were issued notices by the HC as three separate petitions had challenged their elections.
Besides, Nabarangpur BJD lok Sabha member Balabhadra Majhi’s election came under the HC’s scrutiny as former MP and Congress leader Pradeep Majhi has questioned the BJD leader’s victory by a slender margin of 2.042 votes.
Justice Shatrughna Pujahari issued notices to the three MlAs and the lok Sabha member asking them to file their counters-affidavits within three weeks so that the further hearings on the petitions could be taken up again on August 21.
Congress leader lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, who lost to Dasburma by a margin of 1,341 votes in Brahmagiri, has alleged in his petition that the entire process of election and vote counting in his constituency were not done in a proper manner and there was widespread rigging of votes in several booths.
Hema Gamang, wife of former Congress Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang who switched over to the BJD just on the eve of the elections, has challenged the election of Congress MlA Kulesika in the laxmipur segment. The turncoat Hema Gamang was trounced by her Congress rival by a huge margin of 22,473 votes.
The election of Soro BJD MlA Dhada has been challenged in two separate petitions by Congress’ Mrutyunjay Jena and BJP’s Rakesh Mallick. While Dhada polled 57,319 votes, the Congress and BJP candidates polled 52,408 and 23,217 votes, respectively.