BJP questions Odisha HomeMin continuation over murder case

New Delhi, Oct 26 (PTI):
The BJP on Tuesday slammed the Biju Janata Dal government in Odisha over the continuation of the state’s Home Minister Dibya Shankar Mishra despite his alleged links to a case of the gruesome murder of a woman in connection with a suspected sexual exploitation scandal.
Briefing reporters, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the police probe into the murder of the 24-year-old woman, who worked in a Kalahandi school, has led to the arrest of the institute’s administrator Govind Sahu who allegedly ran a sex racket exploiting woman employees. BJP president JP Nadda has formed a three-member committee, including MP Sunita Duggal and party’s woman morcha head Vanathi Srinivasan, to visit the state to prepare a fact finding report on the issue, he said. It has now appeared, Patra said, that Mishra regularly visited the school and a college, which was on the same premises, and spent nights there.
Videos have appeared of Mishra’s speeches in which he is speaking of his nightly stays and how he felt “young” there, the BJP leader alleged.
Still he has remained to be a minister in the state government, he said.
“If this is the condition of a minister, what would be the condition of the BJD government,” Patra said, hitting out at the state dispensation over the issue of atrocities against women. He also noted that Mishra also hold the charge of energy portfolio.
Patra said Sahu had first escaped from police station after a power outage which, he alleged, was not possible without the government’s complicity. The woman had gone missing since October 8, and the police registered a case only a few days earlier after decomposed parts of her body were recovered, Patra said.
To a question, he took a swipe at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for his earlier criticism of the BJP over the Ram mandir issue, and said it was good that he is visiting the temple in Ayodhya.
Kejriwal on Tuesday offered prayers at the Ram Janambhoomi site in Ayodhya.
With the Congress often dubbing some regional parties as BJP’s “B team”, Patra said mockingly that the main opposition party will be gradually reduced to the “Z team” of politics.