Naveen Patnaik suspends general secretary for anti-party activities

05 October, 2012

Chief minister of Odisha and BJD's state president, Naveen Patnaik has suspended Jagneswar, one of the general secretaries of the party, allegedly on the charges of indulging in anti-party activities.

JAGNESHWAR WAS made chief spokesperson of the recently formed Odisha Jana Morcha (OJM) within the party on behalf of Rajaya Sabha member Pyrimohan Mohapatra to “reform” the organization.

Mohapatra who had been suspended from the party for his failed bid to topple Naveen Patnaik on May 29 formed the Morcha to purportedly bring reforms in the party to promote democratic functioning within BJD. Both Mahapatra and Jagneswar had made it clear that OJM was not a separate political party, but a forum within BJD to work for internal democracy and rights of 27 lakhs party workers in the state.

However party supremeo Patnaik had termed the forum as “B” team of congress and said the Morcha would have no impact on the state politics. Earlier, the chief minister had sacked three ministers - Anjali Behera, Sanjeeb Sahoo and Sarada Prasad Nayak from his council of ministers and suspended two MLAs - Prabhat Biswal and Bibhuti Balabantray from the party for being part of Pyari team.

Following the May 29 incident, Patnaik had also had sacked heads of some corporations such as Jyotiskar Mahapatra, Sarat Misra, Prafulla Panda and Sarat Sahu. Later, he also dropped six other ministers including Prafulla Chandra Ghodei, Prafulla Samal, Atam Sabysachi, Sarada Naik, Puspendra Sing Deo and Pratap Jena, in a major cabinet reshuffle on August 2.