Cong Infighting: Srikant Fires ‘Bribe-Giver’ Salvo

Bhubaneswar: Senior Congress leader Srikant Jena, who was recently removed from the Manifesto Committee of Assembly election in Odisha, on Wednesday stepped up attack on Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Niranjan Patnaik.

Denying allegations of indiscipline and without naming the OPCC president, Srikant took a dig at him saying he had not been chided by Orissa High Court for giving bribes.

In 2013, a high court judgement had labelled Niranjan as a “habitual bribe-giver”. It pertained to a vigilance case filed in April 1979 in which a mining officer Shashi Bhushan Kar was found guilty of accepting a bribe of Rs 2,000 from his manager. At that time Niranjan was running iron ore mines at Joda in Keonjhar district.

Srikant had been attacking Niranjan by talking about mining scams since the latter’s relatives are in mining business. His relative Indrani Patnaik was booked by vigilance in the multi-thousand crore mining scam that rocked the state a few years back.

Reacting to his statements, the OPCC president has earlier called him an ‘expert storyteller’.

On Wednesday, Disciplinary Committee of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) discussed the unruly and indiscipline behaviour of Srikant. “The opinion of the members of the Disciplinary Committee on the issue will be sent to the AICC. Since Srikant is an AICC member, the latter will decide the course of action to be taken against him,” said committe chairman Hemananda Biswal.

A day after Srikant’s ouster from the panel, Hemananda had told the media that he was removed for indiscipline.