Bhubaneswar, June 15: The Congress today said the recent statement of Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik ruling out any truck with it was made out of “desperation” and a result of “cracks within the BJD”.

Congress leader and spokesman Narasingh Mishra said: “Neither we are interested, nor have we proposed for any alliance with the BJD. Naveen has made such a statement out of desperation. It seems that he is mentally disturbed because of the vertical crack in the BJD,” he said, referring to the attempts of suspended BJD leader Pyari Mohan Mohapatra to dislodge Naveen from the office.

When a reporter suggested that Naveen might have ruled out any alliance with the Congress with an intention to poach some legislators from the party, Mishra said the Odisha chief minister was in habit of resorting to dishonest politics. “He is encouraging horse-trading, as he did in 2010 Rajya Sabha polls.” In 2010, the BJD had won all the three Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha with the support of two Congress and one BJP MLA.

Referring to Naveen’s statement that he would have no alliance with the BJP, Congress leader Mishra accused Naveen of being “hand in glove with the BJP”.

Veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani had never uttered a single word against the Naveen Patnaik government during his trip to western Odisha last year. Even, Naveen had called on Advani before his recent trip to London, he said.

“He is trying to develop tacit links with the BJP to cling on to power. The BJD has started crumbling and the 2014 elections would its waterloo,” he said.

Countering the clean chit given by yoga guru Ramdev about the Naveen government’s resolve to fight corruption, Mishra alleged that a large number of scams had taken place in the BJD regime. Though Orissa High Court has indicted the government in a couple of cases, Naveen has not shown any respect for the court verdict.

In Khandadhar mines case, the high court had stated that the Odisha government had shown undue favour to mines owners. “But, Naveen had not taken any action,” he said.

The high court had also indicted the government for “illegal” land acquisition for Vedanta University. But, no action had been taken against the guilty officials, said Mishra, adding that the Odisha chief minister had refused to accord permission for prosecution against a few tainted bureaucrats.