BHUBANESWAR: Reiterating Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement at a meeting of party functionaries, former state president of BJP Samir Mohanty on Friday said by contesting from two Assembly segments in the ensuing elections, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wants to leave one for his political successor.
Addressing a media conference here, Mohanty said, “The chief minister plans to vacate one of the two seats after the elections so that VK Pandian can contest from there. It will help the chief minister announce Pandian as his successor later.”
Mohanty said Pandian is in the list of star campaigners of BJD. He is the number two in the regional party after the chief minister. Voting for BJD means the path for Pandian to take over the administration is being cleared. “But the people of Odisha already know the plans of the chief minister and would never allow this to happen,” he said.
The BJP leader said people of Odisha have not forgotten the manner in which democracy was killed in the state in the name of 5T. People will give a fitting reply to BJD for the ill-treatment meted out to ministers, MPs and MLAs, he said.
Strongly countering Mohanty’s statement, BJD Rajya Sabha member and spokesperson Sulata Deo told mediapersons here it is a figment of imagination of BJP leaders. She alleged the statement read by Mohanty was produced by the fake news factory of BJP. BJP’s Odisha leaders always make such baseless allegations whenever they realise they are going to lose the elections. Deo said the 2024 elections will be a repeat of 2019 and it seems BJP leaders have got an inkling of it because of which they are unable to think logically. Mohanty is yet to get over the drubbing that the BJP suffered during his stint as the party president in the panchayat elections, she added.