Khurda: Chilika MLA Prasanta Jagadev, who plowed his car into a crowd near Banapur block office in this district, courted several controversies in the past.
Jagadev had allegedly hurled casteist remarks against BJP’s Balugaon unit president Niranjan Sethi and assaulted the latter October 2 last year.
He was arrested in this connection and sent to jail. Taking a serious note of the incident, the BJD high command had suspended Jagadev from the party.
Later, Jagadev was removed from the Khurda district planning board. But this did not bring any change in Jagadev’s behaviour.
The Chilika MLA had used fowl language towards a woman at a meeting ahead of the three-tier panchayat elections in state.
Jagadev reportedly asked the woman to leave the place if she had no interest to listen to his speech. A purported video of the incident went viral on social media.
Jagadev had also threatened the husband of a panchayat samiti member candidate during the rural polls. A complaint in this regard was lodged with Banapur police.
The controversial MLA had misbehaved with a woman tehsildar triggering a statewide commotion among OAS officers.
BJP leader and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, meanwhile, condemned Saturday’s incident.
“This is an inhuman incident. I pray for the early recovery of the injured persons,” said Pradhan in a tweet. He also expressed concern over the violent incidents in Bhubaneswar and some other areas ahead of the civic body polls.
“It seems that the police are reluctant to take legal action in this regard,” Pradhan added.
PNN
