Bhubaneswar, Jan 13: Protesting simultaneous raids on the house of Balasore MP Rabindra Jena, Cuttack-Choudwar MLA Pravat Biswal and Saroj Sahu, a former personal assistant of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, activists of student and youth wings of BJD staged protest demonstration in front of the CBI office here yesterday. Reports said the activists of Biju Chhatra Janata Dal (BCJD) and Biju Yuva Janata Dal (BYJD) had a scuffle with the police as they tried to barge in to the CBI office. Shouting anti-BJP slogan, they burnt the effigy of senior BJP leader and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Talking to the media, BCJD president Chinmay Sahu said while the BJD MLAs and MPs have cooperated with the CBI in its investigation and appeared before it as and when they have been summoned, why the central probe agency raided the house of these leaders who it had interrogated two years ago? In his reaction, president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Prasad Harichandan said the Congress has been claiming that the BJD and BJP are the two sides of a coin for which the CBI has become helpless. Talking about the raid on the house of Saroj Sahu, who is a an authorised signatory of BJD supremo and chief minister Naveen Patnaik, the OPCC chief said the CBI is yet to probe into the MoU signed by the BJD government with various companies including the Seashore Group. Justifying his contention, Harichandan said if CBI could arrest TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay since he was promoting the Rose Valley ponzi firm, it should take similar action against the Odisha chief minister and his party leaders who had also promoted a number of chit fund companies.
