After arrest of secretary general Jagneswar Babu of his Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM), party president Pyarimohan Mohapatra fears a similar fate ahead of the general elections in which he has vowed to play spoilsport in preventing Naveen Patnaik from coming to power for a fourth time in a row.
“They are trying to arrest me on false charge of Maoist link,” Mohapatra said at Rourkela, where he had gone to attend an OJM rally on Monday.
The rally was, however, washed out due to heavy thundershowers. The Rajya Sabha member has reasons to apprehend such police action against him as DGP Prakash Mishra is in the helm of affairs.
If the DGP gets the slightest opportunity, he may not hesitate to put the OJM leader behind bars, the Mohapatra camp apprehends. Mohapatra knows better than anyone else why he fears the combination of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and DGP Mishra in executing scheme of things.
He knows it well that the BJD Government would not dare to arrest him on any corruption charge as he was part of the ruling party for about a dozen of years. If Patnaik tries to arrest him then Patnaik and the BJD would also be in the dock, feel political observers.
Patnaik has, therefore, only option left with him to corner Mohapatra by entangling him in Maoist case. And there are enough ways to
connect Mohapatra with Maoists, says the observers.
First of all, OJM member Sangram, son of Maoist supporter Dandapani Mohanty, was nabbed by the police with arms some months ago.
And Dandapani was also arrested later.Jagneswar, who was also in the BJD when he was allegedly involved in the State Cooperative Bank scam, remained free as long as he
continued in the ruling party. When he, as an OJM leader, raised his voice against the BJD and Patnaik, he was arrested.