Former BJP MP accuses Dharmendra Pradhan of 'double standards'

Former BJP MP, Kharabela Swain on Sunday accused Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan of being responsible for an attack on his house in 2009.

The three-time former parliamentarian from Balasore, who formed his own party Utkal Bharat in 2010, said he felt compelled to speak about the incident after eight years because of Pradhan's "double standards".

It was the BJP Minister's condemnation of the stone and egg-attack on Biju Janata Dal MP Baijayant Panda that had pushed him to speak up, Swain told ET. While Panda had blamed his party colleague and a certain bureaucrat, Pradhan had blamed Naveen Patnaik.

"In 2009, when I had opposed the MLA candidature of a person, his (Pradhan's) supporters had come to my house and broken things around including my fax, and other equipment. A police complaint had been filed against these people, later appointed to party positions in the district.”

Swain said it was this incident that had driven him to quit the BJP which he had been a member of for almost two decades. "Lot of people ask me why I quit. I quit not because of the BJP but because of the RSS," said Swain. He added that he had never spoken ill of the party, while he was in it, because it was in bad taste to do so.

In Bhubaneshwar, on Sunday, Pradhan told the media Swain was like an elder brother to him and he would look into this allegation.