Normalcy restored in Orissa Assembly after 12-days

BHUBANESWAR: Orissa Legislative Assembly on Thursday returned to normalcy after 12 days of pandemonium with the Opposition taking part in the business of the House.

The face-off between Opposition and the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) came to an end after the latter conceded to the Congress’s demand special discussion in the House on the multi-crore dal scam.

During the discussion, both the opposition Congress and BJP members as usual fired salvos at the treasury bench members for not giving detail information on the dal scam. They accused chief minister Naveen Patnaik of deliberately acting soft in dal scam case as his party men had swindled the Central government provided money through fraudulent means.

Women and child development minister Prafulla Samal refuted the Opposition charges saying that the state government had taken stringent actions against the persons who were found involved in the scam.

“The government has initiated administrative actions against the officials and suppliers who were found by state vigilance department involved in misutilisation of fund. After the probe is over, the investigating agency would initiate legal actions against them. There is no question of shielding of protecting unscrupulous elements,” Mr Samal said.

The Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh, his party colleagues Prasad Harichandan, Naba Kishore Dash, Anup Sai, BJP members Jayanarayan Mishra and independent member Pratap Sarangi criticized the Naveen Patnaik government for delaying to punish some of the collectors who violated dal procurement guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court and Orissa High Court apparently to favour some dishonest suppliers.

They sought a CBI a probe into the case which was rejected by the minister.

BJD members Kalpataru Das, Anant Das Prabhat Tripathy and Pravat Biswal tried to defend the state government saying the Congress was raising the dal scam in a “desperate” attempt to defame the state administration.