BHUBANESWAR: The transfer of principal secretary of Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare department VV Yadav came in for sharp criticism from the Opposition BJD.
BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty on Sunday said Yadav has been made a scapegoat to protect Food Supplies Minister Krushna Chandra Patra whose handling of such a crucial department has been below par from the beginning. The accountability for the death of two tribal women of Mandipanka village in Kandhamal district due to consumption of mango kernel gruel should be owned up by the minister and secretary should not be made a scapegoat.
Mohanty said the government cleverly removed the secretary of the department in a general reshuffle in which other secretaries were also transferred and the exercise looked normal. Removing Yadav in the wake of the Mandipanka incident would have raised the issue of accountability of the minister, he added.
The BJD spokesperson alleged that inefficiency of Patra led to potato crisis in Odisha and people are still buying the tuber at Rs 35 per kg. His repeated statements that the government will import potato from Uttar Pradesh and Punjab did not resolve the issue.
Mohanty demanded that Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi should immediately remove Patra from his post and stop protecting him. “A bureaucrat should not be held responsible for the lapses of a minister,” he added.