BHUBANESWAR : The BJP on Tuesday urged Governor Ganeshi Lal to direct the State government to withdraw the case filed against party MLA from Deogarh, Subash Chandra Panigrahi. A delegation of the BJP led by party’s chief whip in Assembly Mohan Majhi met the Governor and submitted a memorandum jointly signed by all legislators.
Attributing motive to a case filed against Panigrahi, the BJP said that government officials are showing utter disregard to elected leaders of the Opposition political parties. The Book Circular 47 (a circular issued by the State government on the observance of the relationship between MP/MLAs and government servants) has been thrown to the winds as far as the behaviour of public servants of Opposition MPs and MLAs are concerned.
“It is unfortunate that Opposition MLAs neither get respect nor feel safe under Naveen Patnaik government. Though several incidents of attack on BJP legislators have been reported in the recent past, no action has been taken against the officials concerned,” Majhi told media persons after meeting the Governor.
He claimed that the BDO called Panigrahi to five different places to meet him and later, misbehaved with him. When the MLA lodged an FIR, the police did not take any action. Unfortunately, the police arrested Panigrahi acting on BDO’s FIR filed three hours later.