Sudarshan Maharana
Bhubaneswar: Senior BJD leader and minister Damodar Rout, who has weathered many ups and downs in his long political career, is once again facing stiff protests from within the party for remarks attributed to him that his detractors have dubbed as “anti-party and anti-government”.
Senior BJD leader Bishnu Das, the arch rival of the senior Paradip legislator, trained his guns on him yet another time and said Monday that he would approach Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik again to seek the “expulsion of Rout from the council of ministers”.
The two leaders of the ruling party had had a face-off recently over Rout’s alleged “anti-party” remarks over the resignation of Anita Behera as the Mayor of Cuttack. Das’s statement about his plan to formally seek Rout’s expulsion from the cabinet comes a day after news spread about a closed-door meeting attended by Das, Cuttack MLA Debasis Samantray and two ministers – Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak and Pranab Prakash Das – at Samantray’s residence in Cuttack Sunday evening.
Das, a BJD leader from Jagatsinghpur, said the meeting was not an “anti-Dama gathering” and that it was convened to discuss ways to make the IOCL event at Paradip successful. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the event to dedicate the IOCL refinery to the nation February 8. Das, however, said: “Rout has issued anti-party and anti-government remarks on several occasions, for which I will shortly urge the CM to seek his expulsion from the council of ministers.”
Rout maintained that he was unaware of any such meeting of BJD leaders and said: “Why would someone from the party hold a meeting against me?” Reacting to Bishu Das’s statement, the cooperation and excise minister quipped sarcastically: “Smoke without fire”.
Meanwhile, BJD spokesperson Samir Ranjan Das denied any such meeting having been held against Rout. Commenting on the Das-Rout war of words and “anti-party” statements by some BJD leaders, he said: “The chief minister is aware of all these things and has always taken action at the right time.” PNN
