Because of such looters, Cong is unable to hold ground in the State, says Jena
Bhubaneswar: Amid growing infighting over party’s state leadership, two senior Congressmen – Srikant Jena and Niranjan Patnaik – on Wednesday engaged in a verbal duel with Jena alleging presence of mines’ looters in state Congress is a major hindrance to its growth in Orissa.
Jena, who, addressed reporters here on mining scam issues claimed that mine looters exist in all political parties including his party. “Because of such mine looters, Congress is unable to hold ground in the State,” Jena alleged without taking any name.
The former Union minister anticipated that the size of mining scam in the state during last 15 years will not be less than `2 lakh crore.
He demanded that the State Government should take charge of all the mines in the State and the property of mining looters needs to be seized immediately and a fine of `70,000 crore should be recovered from them at the earlier.
Reacting to Jena’s allegation, Congress leader and former Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee chief Niranjan Patnaik wanted to know why Jena was silent and didn’t ask for a CBI probe into the mining when he was a Union minister.
Patnaik further blasted Jena indirectly terming him a mining mafia. “Two kinds of mine looters exist. One, who does explorations illegally and the other who acts as mafia without having any mine,” Patnaik, said while claiming that Jena must be having this list with him.
Meanwhile, the move of Jena is considered as a counter to Niranjan whose name has been recommended by the Congress Legislature Party and some other leaders for OPCC president post.
Post News Network
