BJD, BJP lock horns over poll funding allegations

Bhubaneswar: With politics over alleged dubious poll funding by BJD heating up, Ganjam collector on Monday filed a recall petition in the Orissa High Court to dismiss the writ petition, which sought direction to Election Commission for early completion of inquiry on alleged “false” statements made about BJD president Naveen Patnaik’s election expenses during the 2014 assembly polls, as the petitioner was not a resident of the constituency.
“All the details related to polls are destroyed after one year. Therefore, asking for the details after two years of completion of the elections is not acceptable,” the collector said.
Earlier in the day, a five-member team of state BJP unit under the leadership of vice-president Sameer Mohanty met the Income Tax Commissioner and sought a thorough inquiry into the alleged discrepancies in BJD’s election expenditure.
The ruling party, on the other hand, said it would move court against some BJP leaders and a particular English news channel over the dubious funding allegation leveled against it.
Terming the allegation as political vendetta, BJD spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Pratap Deb said the bank had all the details of the transactions and IT can easily collect them from there.
Quoting a report published in a national daily, he alleged that about Rs 5,000 crore was transferred to BJP and Congress bank accounts from different unknown sources in the last ten years. “Will they give the detailed information of their funds?” he asked.
On Sunday, Naveen, on his return to the state capital after five-day trip to Delhi, dubbed the allegation ‘malicious, fabricated and false.’
An English news channel had aired an expose on BJD’s alleged dubious funding and accused the ruling party of suppressing information from the poll panel.