Minister for Health and Family Welfare and senior vice-president of the ruling BJD Damodar Rout on Friday criticised the State Election Commissioner AK Tripathy for issuing a show cause notice to Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya for alleged violation of the model code of conduct during an election meeting.
Creating a flutter in the political circle, Rout said that the SEC had himself resorted to violation of model code of conduct by issuing show cause to Finance Minister Acharya without any prima facie evidence.
The action of the SEC had virtually affected the poll prospects of the BJD, he asserted. Acharya had allegedly threatened voters in an election meeting at his home town Baragarh to stop funding to the civic bodies in western Odisha as Finance Minister if people did not vote for BJD in the Urban local Body (UlB) polls.
The SEC, while serving a show cause notice to the Finance Minister for alleged violation of poll code, had also asked the Bargarh District Collector to inquire into the incident and submit a report by November 23 in the wake of the allegation of the Opposition Congress and the BJP about the Minister’s poll code violation.
While the Congress in its memorandum demanded the SEC to set aside the Bargarh UlB elections, the BJP demanded the SEC to direct the Chief Minister to dismiss Acharya. However, the Finance Minister in his reaction on Friday said that he learnt about the show cause notice of SEC from media reports. “I would give my reply to the SEC on receipt of the notice officially, but not now,” he quipped.
On the other hand, Rout in his reaction said serving a show cause notice to the Minister before the report of the District Collector was a violation of model code of conduct by the Election Commissioner himself. The senior BJD leader said the SEC should have waited for the report of the District Collector before issuing the show cause notice. However, the statement of Rout against SEC Tripathy raised a political row with both the Opposition BJP and Congress condemning the conduct of the senior BJD leader.
Ridiculing Rout for his accusations levelled against constitutional body like SEC, senior BJP leader Biswa Bhushan Harichandan described the statement as “unfortunate”. Harichandan asserted that the SEC has the inherent power and authority to issue show cause notices for alleged violation of model code of conduct. Similarly, PCC president Jaydev Jena alleged that Rout’s challenge exposed the lack of respect of ruling BJD towards the democratic institutions and constitutional bodies.