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Talking to the media, Bikram Arukh said that if necessary he would surrender one house as it was undeserving as per law to own two government allotted houses in the capital. But he categorically denied that he was yet to take possession of both the houses.
We at the OTV had earlier aired an investigative item to unearth the truth. Matter of factly, on August 4, 2009, Arukh had applied for the house on Plot No.A/2 at Ananta Vihar in Pokhariput area of the city when Badri Narayan Patra was the urban development minister. Arukh even had deposited Rs 5 lakhs under the housing scheme of the BDA.
Later Arukh through an affidavit pleaded that he should be provided one house in the capital as he could not get one in the lottery system and he had no other house in Bhubaneswar. He then deposited Rs. 59 lakhs in the BDA account.
OTV investigations revealed that in fact Arukh had got one house from the BDA in his wife`s name in 2007. The house was allotted to Jayalaxmi Arukh, wife of Bikram Arukh, on May 31, 2007, after depositing Rs. 12.95 lakh. The house located at Subuddhipur in Kalinga Vihar locality was allotted to Arukh when BJP leader Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo was the urban development minister.
Now the truth has come out even in the words of the law minister. Though the minister has admitted that it was a fault by default, he was adamant when he said that he would not resign from the cabinet owning moral turpitude.
