Former Kendrapada MP Baijayant Panda, who is in the centre of a controversy following his helicopter flight over Chilika lake, met Puri Sankaracharya Nischalananda Saraswati in Badachana.
On Saturday, while the Puri seer was taking rest in a room at Badachana, the former BJD MP had met him, which was of course a top secret if sources are to be believed.
It came to the fore after the photo went viral on the social networking site Facebook. Following his discussion with the Puri Sankaracharya, speculations are now rife in political circles about next move of Panda ahead of the 2019 elections.
According to sources of the Puri Gobardhan Peeth, after a month- and -a –half- long religious tour to outside of Odisha, the Sankaracharya had reached Cuttack on November 1 and attended religious events.
He then visited Jajpur to address programmes and stayed at Badachana on Saturday in a room allotted by a devotee there. He will be back to Puri on Monday.
A local source said while the Sankaracharya was busy in his laptop on the bed inside at the room at Badachana, Panda suddenly arrived there driving a two-wheeler alone. A helmet was almost covering his head.
After his arrival, he entered the room, bowed down before the seer, sat on the floor and had discussions for almost half an hour. After receiving Bibuti (holy powder) from the Sankaracharya, Panda returned back carrying his bike alone, an eye-witness of Badachana revealed on condition of anonymity. He further added that someone present there has uploaded the mobile photo on Facebook.
Although the contents of the discussion between the two were yet not known, however, in a boiling political scenario of State the meeting of Panda with a top religious leader of the Hindus has sparked off a lot of speculations.