Dharmendra Pradhan slams Naveen Patnaik , raises Kalahandi teacher’s murder case

BHUBANESWAR: Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who had largely refrained from criticising chief minister Naveen Patnaik after the 2019 elections, on Friday resorted to a no-holds-barred attack on the CM questioning his silence on Kalahandi teacher Mamita Meher’s murder.
Stating that the woman teacher’s murder and its handling by the government had shaken the collective conscience of the state, Dharmendra said, “Leaders across many parties have taken moral responsibility to leave their posts whenever they have come under cloud. Lal Bahadur Shastri had resigned as railway minister following a railway mishap. LK Advani had resigned as leader of opposition after his name figured in hawala case. There are many such examples. Naveen himself has asked many of his ministers to resign in past. But the CM has set a new tradition for the (junior) home minister Dibya Shankar Mishra.”
“Circumstantial evidence is important in a crime. The murdered teacher’s parents had to move from one police station to another to lodge a case. The government has now brought them again to high court to file a sponsored case to fast-track hearing when no charge-sheet has been filed. What is haunting you?” Dharmendra asked Naveen. The Union minister was speaking at an event to mark joining of former BJD minister Sanjeeb Sahoo in BJP.
As the most prominent BJP face in Odisha, Dharmendra had led the campaigns in the simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly elections in 2019 and had bene criticising Naveen government for virtually everything. After the polls, he had largely stayed away from any diatribes against Naveen publically.
Dharmendra also questioned spending of funds under Mineral Development Foundation without tenders and Odisha’s slow pace of vaccination and said, “Time is changing. Odisha is looking for a political alternative. That alternative lies in Narendra Modi’s leadership. We have to strengthen the BJP,” he said.
Responding to Dharmendra’s jibes, BJD general secretary (organization) Pranab Prakash Das said, “You (Dharmendra) have yourself conceded that Naveen has not spared anyone however influential one may be for wrong doings. People of Odisha know the CM continues to do so.”
In a series of tweets, Das wrote that it would be better if Dharmendra teaches lessons on morality to Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra whose son had to be arrested following Supreme Court intervention after mowing down innocent farmers under his car wheels.
Das dared Dharmendra to bring proof before police and court against Dibya Shankar Mishra. In that case, Naveen would not only ask for resignation, but also send him behind bars, he wrote.