BJP State office locked for two days

The angry protesters locked the main gate of BJP office near Ram Mandir and sat on dharna blocking entry into the office.
Furniture ransacked inside Congress Bhawan I Express
Furniture ransacked inside Congress Bhawan I Express

BHUBANESWAR: Rebellion in the BJP over distribution of tickets for Assembly elections has spilled on to the streets with angry protesters vandalising party offices at several places in the state and supporters of Ekamra-Bhubaneswar constituency aspirant Amiya Dash keeping the state party office under seige for two days.

As the first list of candidates for the Assembly election was released by the Central Election Committee of the BJP late on Thursday night and Ekamra seat going to BJD turncoat Babu Singh, supporters of Dash first targeted  the house of party vice-president Samir Mohanty.

After pelting stones at Mohanty’s house, they damaged his car and forcibly took him to state party office.

As Mohanty said he has nothing to do with the selection of candidates, which was done by a core committee of the party in which he was not a member, the BJP workers from Ekamra areas asked the former to resign from the post as a mark of protest against selection of Singh who joined BJP only a couple of days ago.

The angry protesters locked the main gate of BJP office near Ram Mandir and sat on dharna blocking entry into the office. The dharna which started from mid-night of Thursday continued till Saturday afternoon.
Holi celebrations in the party had to be cancelled due to the lock-up. The venue of the joining ceremony of Kandhamal MP Pratyusha Rajeswari Singh has shifted to senior leader K V Singh Deo’s house on Saturday over the same reason.

With assurance from Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan that the demand has been conveyed to the Central leadership for reconsideration of nomination for the seat, Dash requested the agitators to call off the agitation to which they obliged. “I am a disciplined worker of the party. I will abide by the decision of the party,” Dash told this paper.

However, Sunil Panda, a staunch supporter of Dash said a parachute candidate was nominated ignoring the one who worked tirelessly for the party. “While the BJP claims it is a party with difference, the selection of Singh over Dash is certainly not acceptable to many of us,” he said with the assertion that they will not hesitate to support Dash as an independent candidate.

Reports of BJP workers ransacking party offices in Keonjhar and Laxmipur protesting allotment of tickets to Bhabani Sankar Nayak and Kumuda Saunta have queered the pitch for the saffron party.

The BJP workers ransacked party office in Laxmipur and set afire some documents protesting Saunta’s candidature. There were nine aspirants from the party for the Assembly segment. As the news of Saunta’s candidature reached the other aspirants, they attacked the party office and raised slogans against the leadership besides burning documents.

The nomination of Odia cine actor-turned-politician Pinki Pradhan for Digapahandi Assembly seat in Ganjam district was opposed by another aspirant Uttam Panigrahi who has threatened to contest an an independent if the party failed to reconsider its decision. Resentment over candidate selection has also been reported from Basudevpur, Balangir and Rourkela.

Youths ransack Congress Bhavan

Bhubaneswar: Discontentment over ticket distribution in Congress took an ugly turn on Saturday when a group of youths ransacked the party headquarters in the capital city. They were protesting announcement of Rashmirekha Mohapatra as the party’s candidate from the Ekamra-Bhubaneswar assembly constituency. The youths barged into the Congress Bhavan and damaged tables, chairs and many computers inside the office. However, no senior leader of the party was willing to comment on the incident.

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