Bhubaneswar, Sept. 8: The Congress has started mounting pressure on the Naveen Patnaik government with an eye on the forthcoming panchayat elections.

The party today submitted a detailed memorandum against the “misdeeds” of the Biju Janata Dal government during its 11-year rule to President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi.

In what was described as the party’s charge-sheet against the state government, the Congress’s allegations listed the multi-crore mining scam, corruption relating to the rural job scheme, dal scam, BPL rice scam, grant of Khandadhar iron ore mining lease to Posco, suppression of the Lok Pal’s report on the illegal land acquisition for Vedanta University, corruption in the water resources department and the Orissa Health System Development Project.

A delegation of Congress leaders led by the All India Congress Committee in-charge of Orissa, Jagdish Tytler, and Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik, along with leader of the Orissa Opposition, Bhupinder Singh, today met President Patil and sought her intervention to protect citizens.

The Congress also demanded a detailed inquiry into these scams and scandals through an independent investigation agency.

“The mining scam should be handed over to the CBI for investigation,” one of the Congress leaders said.

A copy of the memorandum was also released in Bhubaneswar by the party’s senior leaders. The BJD, however, termed the charge as “baseless and false”. “Before they approached the President, they should have verified their facts. They have no moral right to raise these issues as their government at the Centre is embroiled in a number of corruption cases including the 2G spectrum case,” said Biju Yuva Janata Dal (BJYD) president Sanjay Dasburma

After the Congress leaders met President Patil, jubilant party leaders today called a media conference at Bhubaneswar to release the 32-page charge-sheet.

The Congress charged the government with “criminal misuse of power, betrayal of people’s trust, looting of public exchequer, plundering of the natural wealth, robbing the poor, non-performance, bad governance, violating human rights, abdicating constitutional and moral obligation and undermining democratic and constitutional institutions”.

Senior leaders Narasingh Mishra, Nalinikanta Mohanty, Sibananda Ray addressed the media conference.

Terming the mining scam as the mother of all scams, the Congress leaders gave a number of examples in an attempt to “explain” how precious minerals worth thousands of crores had been looted by the government.

“There is an unholy nexus between political leaders, bureaucrats and the mining mafia,” the memorandum states. The Congress leaders also alleged that a BJD MLA’s son was the kingpin of a fraudulent transaction of transportation of iron ore.

The Congress accused the BJD government of showing undue favour to the South Korean company Posco by granting them mining of Khandadhar Iron Ore mines without following procedure.

The Congress urged the President to direct the CBI to widen its investigation in the rural job scheme case and cover the entire state.