Bhubaneswar: The police are on the hunt for Om Prakash Mishra, the BJP candidate contesting the Sayabadi Assembly seat, who is facing arrest for attacking a polling official and damaging the EVM in a booth at Balabhadra Nodal Up School during the third phase of polling on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the ruling BJD on Wednesday expressed serious doubt that some senior leaders of the saffron party have abetted his escape to another state.
In a release, the BJD said “For the candidate of a national party, Mishra’s conduct is extremely deplorable. Now, the question is, where is Mishra? A lookout notice has been issued against him after he absconded. The BJP is also saving its face and not able to answer as to why a national party candidate of theirs is absconding and not cooperating with the law of the land. Who booked his ticket and helped him flee outside the state? Is it the same important person who had helped the killers of the Chhatrapur BJD Councillor Laximidatt Pradhan to flee Odisha and given him shelter in a guesthouse in Uttarakhand?”
Citing another instance of violence in a booth in Girol in Brahmagiri Assembly constituency where a BID worker, Rajendra Behera was brutally attacked and an EVM was destroyed in another booth at Kama Sasana of the same constituency on the same day, the release said the violence perpetrated by the BJP leaders and workers in the third-phase polls is unprecedented in the history of Odisha politics.
“After the third phase of polling BJP has realized that they are losing badly in Odisha, so they are indulging in wanton violence out of desperation and frustration,” it said.
Referring to the vandalism by a BJP MLA candidate Nilamani Bisoyee who, with his supporters had damaged the EVM in a booth in Sorada Assembly constituency in the second-phase polls, the release said as such people are BJP’s candidates, the party obviously wants to use them for furthering political violence in Odisha.
“Odisha is a peaceful state. Its peaceful political culture has been admired by people across the country. The people of Odisha are shocked at the depths of political violence that has wreaked havoc in the state,” the release pointed out.
Taking a dig at Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the release said the former has imbibed the culture of political violence from Bihar and Madhya Pradesh from where he is elected to Rajya Sabha.
“As the BJP is destroying the peace and tranquility, which was upheld by the BJD over the past two decades, the people will give a fitting reply to the saffron party and ensure that such violence is uprooted and Odisha becomes a peaceful state again,” it noted.
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