BHUBANESWAR: The CBI has once again returned to haunt the ruling BJD in Odisha, as a team from the Central investigating agency on Friday questioned party vice-president and former minister Debi Prasad Mishra at his official residence here in connection with the Seashore Chit Fund scam. The investigation into the scam has been dragging on for the last seven years. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also registered a case against the Seashore Group in 2014.
The CBI officials visited his residence and questioned him in person even as Mishra is in home isolation after testing Covid-19 positive. While questioning the timing of the action, the BJD and Congress also came down heavily on the CBI, charging it of having ulterior motives in conducting the raid as crucial bypolls to two Assembly seats Balasore and Tirtol are in the horizon.
Mishra is one of three leaders who have been given charge of the poll management in Balasore Assembly seat to be held before November 29. The ruling BJD has launched all out efforts to wrest the seat from BJP.
BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty told mediapersons that the CBI has been investigating cases in Odisha for the last seven years. “A pattern is clearly evident. The CBI starts conducting searches, raids and issues notices just before elections,” he said.
Congress whip in the Assembly, Tara Prasad Bahinipati, however, termed the CBI action a drama to mislead people. “The BJD and BJP are friends in Delhi and enemies in Odisha. The ruling party had supported NDA’s Deputy Chairperson candidate for Rajya Sabha. How long has this case been going on. Why this sudden raid ahead of the polls?” he asked.
However, State BJP general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan rubbished the allegations and said that those who duped people will be punished.Mishra, meanwhile, said that officials from the investigating agency visited his residence in connection with the Mahanadi Boating project of the Seashore chit fund company. The Badamba MLA told mediapersons that it was “not a raid” and that the officials “just wanted some documents”. The CBI team was, however, in his residence for nearly two hours.
The State Government had signed an agreement with Seashore Group for a water sports complex with a restaurant in Cuttack and allowed the company to manage a State-run guest house in Khurda in 2008-09 during Mishra’s tenure as the Tourism minister. “They asked me about the documents of the project and I told them they are in the department and not with me,” he said.
The BJD leader said that he was not given prior information regarding the visit of the CBI officers to his place. The CBI had in July this year interrogated one of the main accused Subhankar Nayak to ascertain the role of two IAS officers and one IPS officer in the scam. In August, the agency had grilled Mishra’s diarist Dilip Mishra and associate Prafulla Singh, a former BJD executive president of Cuttack district.
On Friday, simultaneous raids were conducted at Mishra’s official residence in Bhubaneswar and house in Cuttack, the house of then Director Tourism Rabi Narayan Nanda, office and house of the director of 141 Avenues and Associates Pvt Limited Bishnu Prasad Mishra in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack and the office and house of managing director of Swagatika Impex Private Limited Prasanna Kumar Patnaik in Thane West, Maharashtra, CBI officials said.