Former Bari MLA Sunanda Das’ husband Debendra Das on Friday made an explosive statement by claiming that, BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik was made a candidate from Kantabanji Assembly constituency in a bid to get him defeated in the last General Election.
According to Debendra, Laxman Bag was defeated by a narrow margin of 126 votes in Kantabanji in 2019 election. The number of Yadav voters in the constituency is nearly 93,000 and under the circumstances, Naveen should not have been made a candidate from the seat.
Debendra alleged that a conspiracy was hatched so that Naveen would be defeated and former 5T Chairman VK Pandian would be the Chief Minister.
“It was a conspiracy to make Naveen Patnaik a candidate from Kantabanjhi so that he would be defeated and Pandian would be the Chief Minister,” said Debendra.
However, no reaction could be obtained from BJD in response to Debendra’s statement.
Notably, Debendra’s wife Sunanda has recently left BJD.
Meanwhile, BJD leader Amar Patnaik rapped the State government for downgrading former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s security from Z to Y category.
“It is quite unfortunate to downgrade former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s security from Z to Y category,” said Amar.
“It’s the prerogative of the government to do this. There is no question about the legality of it. But, there is something called political decorum and nicety. I think the government of the day has failed in that by resorting to this kind of action. For every such action of belittling Naveen Patnaik, the people of Odisha will never forget these incidences and forgive them ever,” said Amar.
In response, BJP spokesperson Dilip Mallick said, “More security is being provided to Naveen Patnaik than the amount of security provided to former Chief Ministers and Opposition leaders earlier.”
