Dharmendra Pradhan Defends Jayanarayan Mishra; Calls The Incident State-Sponsored, Pre-Planned

Bhubaneswar: With BJD clamouring for the dismissal of Jayanarayan Mishra as Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Odisha Assembly over his alleged scuffle with a woman cop, senior BJP leader and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday said that it was pre-planned and sponsored by the government to cover up its inefficiency and wrongdoings.

“The LoP post is not a charity from Naveen Patnaik, he was appointed by the Parliamentary Board of BJP. More than half a dozen BJD Ministers and leaders are directly involved in murder and other irregularities. The law and order situation is fast deteriorating in the state. So, who is preaching morality?” he asked.

Dharmendra said when Jayanarayan Mishra expressed his lack of faith in police after an ASI shot a Cabinet Minister dead with his service revolver, three separate organisations of Odisha police were goaded to seek an apology from him. “We saw no such demand when the state home minister brought bribery charges against police or when veteran politician Soumya Ranjan Patnaik said that he feared that his PSO might turn into a Gopal Das,” he said.

When the LoP decided to return his PSO, none from the police department spoke to him to allay his fears, he said.

“Such pre-planned and state-sponsored acts do not last long in a democracy,” he added.

Notably, Odisha Police on Wednesday registered a case against Jayanarayan Mishra for allegedly assaulting an on-duty woman police officer, a charge he denied. He instead accused Anita Pradhan, inspector-in-charge (IIC) of Dhanupali police station in Sambalpur district, of manhandling him.

Also Read: Odisha LoP Jayanarayan Mishra Alleges BJD Plot To ‘Kill’ Him