Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s 5T Secretary V K Pandian has been receiving brickbats from the Opposition for his whirlwind tours across Odisha with even ruling BJD MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik questioning the estimated Rs 300 crore being spent on his visits and chopper rides to different districts ostensibly to collect public grievances.
On Tuesday, BJP MP from Bhubaneswar Aparajita Sarangi also raised the use of helicopter by Pandian, a 2000-batch IAS officer, to travel 30 km to 40 km from the state capital. “The money spent on travelling, organising public meetings, getting SHG members and students for such meetings is not the personal money of a serving bureaucrat,” she tweeted.
She further alleged, “I am increasingly convinced that such flamboyance and splurging of public money is happening by taking advantage of Hon’ble CM’s (Odisha) present physical and mental conditions (sic).”
Notably, the 5T Secretary has attended a number of programmes in Khurda district of which Bhubaneswar is a part. He visited Begunia and Nachuni, which are 25 km away from Bhubaneswar, in a helicopter.
Earlier, Congress MLA from Jatni (also part of Khurda district) Suresh Routray also expressed displeasure over large sums of money being spent on the 5T Secretary’s visit to nearby places.
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Pandian’s increasing public appearances and CM Naveen Patnaik’s gradual withdrawal from public events is being viewed with lot of political significance and could be a pointer to ruling BJD’s future plans.
