BHUBANESWAR: AS the wrangling between BJD and BJP ahead of the by-poll to the Bijepur Assembly constituency reached a new low, the regional party on Tuesday targeted Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and demanded that his movement in the constituency should be restricted as BJP is pumping in huge money to bribe voters in favour of its candidate Ashok Panigrahi.
In a memorandum submitted to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), a BJD delegation led by general secretary Debasis Samantray demanded that the vehicle in which the Union Minister is travelling during the campaign and his entourage should also be put under CCTV surveillance. Stating that during the last three days huge sums of money have been seized by the police from persons allegedly belonging to the BJP, Samantray alleged that no investigation has been conducted on seizure of ` 40.5 lakh and ` 10.2 lakh from persons having links with the BJP. Alleging that police is not taking any action on these cases, the BJD demanded these cases should be properly investigated by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and immediate action taken.
The BJD alleged that police had to return without proper investigation during a raid on BJP office at Gaisilet on Monday when opposed, clearly exposing failure of the administration. BJD general secretary and MLA Pradeep Panigrahi, MLA Priyadarshi Mishra, Mayor of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Ananta Narayan Jena, State secretary Bijaya Nayak and spokesperson Sasmit Patra were in the delegation.BJD leaders and workers later shouted slogans against the Election Commission alleging that action has not been taken on any of the complaints filed by the party on violation of model code of conduct by the BJP.