Bhubaneswar, July 24: The BJD today threatened legal action against those, who have allegedly tried to tarnish the image of chief minister Naveen Patnaik and the party on the issue of receiving poll funds and giving wrong election expenditure statement to the Election Commission in 2014.

The Opposition had alleged there were discrepancies in the affidavits of the chief minister and a BJD MP filed before the Election Commission.

They said a single RTGS cheque was used to transfer the money to the BJD and Mayurbhanj MP Ramchandra Hansda's accounts.

The issue came to light after an RTI activist pointed out the discrepancies and approached court, which had directed the Election Commission to submit the records.

BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb today said: "The party will soon send legal notice to a news channel, which had telecast a story alleging hawala transactions in the BJD. It will also sue the BJP for holding a news conference on a false story. They should have checked the veracity of allegations before targeting the BJD."

Deb displayed a written statement of the SBI to support his claim that no single RTGS was used. "The BJP's allegation that chief minister Naveen Patnaik and MP Hansda had received funds through same cheque number has no truth," he said.

After returning from Delhi yesterday, Naveen had termed the BJP's allegation as "malicious", "fabricated" and "false" and maintained that a sustained effort was being made to malign his party's image.

However, a five-member delegation of the BJP, led by its state vice-president Samir Mohanty, today met the income tax commissioner seeking a probe into the alleged discrepancies noticed in the BJD's election expenditure.

Mohanty said: "We have submitted a memorandum. We suspect that Ponzi money was used by the BJD during election. We will fight the case. We have urged the income tax commissioner to take the matter to central board of director (tax)," said Mohanty.

Zero tolerance

The chief minister today asked the government officials to adopt a "zero tolerance policy" against corruption.

Presiding over a meeting of officials at the state secretariat, Naveen asked the officials to keep tabs on the implementation of various welfare schemes such as the Niramaya Yojana, Jananai Surakshya and the ICDS programmes.

Following today's decision, all the panchayat representatives, government and block officials will be made aware of the consequences of corruption. "A committee will be constituted at the block, district and state levels. The vigilance department officials will members in the committee and they will guide us on how to maintain transparency," an official said, adding that the committee would submit its report to the vigilance headquarters regularly.

The vigilance department will make a detailed analysis of these reports and forward it to the departments concerned. At the state level, an oversight committee will be formed under the chairmanship of the chief secretary to keep tabs on all the activities and ensure that corruption at the ground level is checked.