Former chairperson of Kangra block in Nabarangapur district Prabhati Kandha on Friday approached the State Commission for Women (SCW) and the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) to take action against Nabarangpur BJD MlA Manohar Randhari for allegedly harassing her.
In her letter to the two commissions, Kandha said the MlA had asked her several times to keep physical relation with him. Randhari had even once touched her private parts for which reason she cried loudly outside his house and a party worker knows about it, she alleged.
She further alleged that the MlA had taken Rs4 lakh and 70 gm of gold from her this year for the purpose of party expenditure. When she asked him to return the money, he didn’t repay and avoided her, she added.
Kandha said the MlA didn’t give her a chance to work freely for the block as he was always interfering in her business. “It was really embarrassing for me to work like a doll in the hand of a party chief of my constituency,” she rued.
She informed all the happenings to BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on September 2, but in vain. Then, she lodged a complaint at the Tentulikhunti police station on September 15, but the police neither registered the complaint nor supplied an FIR copy to her. “The police, in the name of interrogation, harassed me by asking several private questions. The police said they cannot lodge an FIR against the MlA and completed the formalities by lodging a station diary only,” she alleged.
Kandha prayed before the SWC and OHRC to take stringent action against the MlA. “If the State does not take any action against the MlA, I will stage an indefinite hunger strike in front of the State Assembly from the Gandhi Jayanti onwards,” she said, adding, “If anything happens to me, the Chief Minister, the MlA and the administration will be responsible for that.”