Cuttack: With less than 24 hours to go for Union Defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s scheduled visit to Cuttack, police in the Millennium City is on tenterhooks in view of the Bargarh incident on Friday, which witnessed an attack allegedly by BJD workers on the convoy of two central ministers Santosh Gangwar and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti.
Though the police administration has not yet disclosed details about the security bandobast during the minister’s visit to the grand old city, sources said a three-layer security has been planned to keep potential trouble-makers at bay.
“Sufficient police arrangement would be made and there should not be any law and order problem,” Cuttack DCP Sanjeev Arora told newsmen.
On the extent of police deployment and preventive arrest of any party workers, the DCP quipped, “That is being worked out.”
Arora, however, parried questions on special police arrangements to avoid a Bargarh-like incident.
Along with Parrikar, Union minister of state for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla and Union Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan are also scheduled to attend BJP’s Vikas Utsav meeting here.
Parrikar is scheduled to address a gathering of intellectuals at Sarala Bhawan at around 6 pm as part of the celebrations. BJP leaders aver that the Union ministers’ visit will infuse fresh energy among party cadres.
However, the ruling BJD, which has been accused of orchestrating the attack on Union minister Sanjay Gangwar in Bargarh yesterday, has sought to wash its hands of the incident and denied any such plan on Sunday.
Asked if BJD has any demonstration plans in Cuttack on Sunday, BJD leader and Barabati-Cuttack MLA Debasis Samantaray said; “BJD will not do any such thing.”
Seeking to explain away the Bargarh incident as a manifestation of public ire, Samantaray said; “See, the BJD has no links with the Bargarh incident. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself had assured farmers and the weavers' community of the region of their overall development but no work has been initiated in this direction by the Centre so far. It (the Friday incident) was a fallout of the public ire.”