Bhubaneswar: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Bijoy Mohapatra on Monday came out in support of expelled BJD MLA Pradeep Panigrahi and said the allegations made by the latter are true.
“I completely agree with Panigrahi's version of the governance. Whatever he had said against the ruling party is completely true. In fact, in the past, I had many times reiterated that the power has been centred on a handful of bureaucrats in the State,” Mohapatra said.
“It is a well-known fact that the ego and arrogance of those bureaucrats have crossed all limits,” said Mohapatra.
Terming the expulsion of Panigrahi “inhuman”, Mohapatra said, “To force Panigrahi and his family to go through this trauma just ahead of his daughter’s marriage is inhuman. The party should not have done this.”
Mohapatra went on to say that senior forest officers and government officials were already aware of the gross irregularities done by the tainted IFS officer Abhay Kant Pathak. “Everybody knew about this much before. What baffles me is why they acted now. What were they doing when Pathak was spending lavishly in chartered flights,” he questioned.
Earlier on Sunday, Panigrahi came down heavily on the State of affairs in Odisha and said, “The administration is not being run by the Chief Secretary, but only one person is calling the shots here,” while making a veiled attack on VK Pandian, Chief Minister’s private secretary.
Once considered Naveen Patnaik’s ‘blue-eyed boy’, Panigrahi spewed venom against the ruling-party while addressing a press conferencing that lasted for over an hour.
(Edited By Ramakanta Biswas)