Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Congress Monday claimed that it was the ‘real’ opposition party in the state and not the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
The claim was made by Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Bhakta Charan Das at a press conference here.
“We lost the Nuapada bypolls due to ‘vote loot’ by the ruling BJP, but emerged as the main rival of the saffron party in the state. Congress candidate Ghasiram Majhi was in the second place while the BJD had been pushed to third position,” Das said.
In the 147-member Odisha Assembly, the ruling BJP has 79 MLAs, BJD 50, Congress 14, three Independents and CPI(M) one MLA.
In the Nuapada bypoll, BJP candidate Jay Dholakia won the seat by securing over 1.23 lakh votes, while Congress candidate Ghasiram Majhi came second with 40,121 votes, and the BJD nominee got 38,408 votes.
Reiterating his allegation that BJD and BJP are two sides of the same coin, Das claimed that the BJP candidate won the seat as the BJD put a candidate from outside Nuapada in the bypoll. “The BJD either gave its candidate to BJP or the BJP indulged in candidate chori is a matter of investigation. But, some foul play is there behind the candidate switching before bypoll in Nuapada,” Das said.
He said the link between BJD and BJP is no secret. “When Congress MLAs brought a no-confidence motion proposal against the BJP government, the BJD did not support it. Rather, they created noise in the Assembly for which no discussion could be made. The BJD had all along helped the BJP and bailed it out during crisis. They are friendly parties and not rivals,” Das said.
He said that though BJD president Naveen Patnaik campaigned twice in the Nuapada bypoll, it had no impact on the people because of the wrong strategy of the regional party.
“The BJD leaders presented Patnaik in a wrong way, for which his campaign could not be effective, thus giving an edge to the BJP candidate,” Das said.
Expressing wonder over the huge victory margin of 83,748 votes of the BJP candidate at Nuapada, Das claimed that there was no impressive gathering of people even in Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s public meetings.
The OPCC president also claimed that even though the BJP candidate had not covered all the gram panchayats under the Nuapada assembly segment during campaigning, he got the majority votes.
Das referred to a purported video showing BJP candidate Jay Dholakia touching the feet of a senior police officer after his bypoll victory.
PTI, however, could not independently verify the authenticity of the video
“This proved how the police helped him and worked for the ruling party,” the OPCC president alleged.
Jay Dholakia was not immediately available for comment on the remarks made by Das.
Replying to a question, the OPCC president admitted that there were reports of internal sabotage in the Congress and the party was examining the allegations.
Regarding the existence of ‘Bibhisan’ in Congress, he said, “they are in all political parties. We are examining the allegation.”
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