BJD MP Pinaki Misra being charged with offering bribe of Rs200 each to a group of journalists at a meeting at Puri on Wednesday is widely considered as a non-issue. In fact, it sounds as a big joke.
Misra, also a roaring law practitioner in New Delhi, is officially the richest elected representative in Odisha and known to be a large-hearted spender. If he at all chose to bribe scribes, he is not that a fool to have done it at a public forum when he was addressing the media as the chairman of a Parliamentary Standing Committee! And he would not certainly have decided on such a tiny amount of Rs200 to influence a reporter which is shameful for a person of his standing!
This is the view shared even by many in his politically opposite circles in private talks. Everyone, in fact, realises that Misra was ignorant about the “bribe” money tucked in the writing pad handed to the reporters. The culprit, it clearly appears, was the nationalised UCO Bank, which was hosting the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development. And Misra has also publicly held the bank responsible for the unsavoury episode that happened at his Press meet.
As political observers say, the Rs200-bribe charge is not the right acceptable stick to beat Pinaki Misra with! His opponents should lay their hands on real credible weapons, if any, to expose the chinks in his seemingly impregnable armour!