Pyari Mohan Mohapatra

Bhubaneswar/Paradip, Feb. 18: The controversy over former BJD leader Pyari Mohan Mohapatra’s alleged link with Maoists found its echo in the Odisha Assembly today.

Raising the issue in the House, BJD legislator Pradeep Maharathy drew attention to a complaint lodged by Odisha Lok Dal president Dipti Ranjan Mohanty at Capital police station accusing Mohapatra of hobnobbing with the Maoists.

Mohapatra has threatened to dislodge the Naveen Patnaik government if he is arrested.

Maharathy, who demanded a statement from chief minister and home minister Naveen Patnaik on the issue, also found support from leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh and BJP legislature party leader K.V. Singhdeo. Both Singh and Singhdeo said that the House should know whether the rebel BJD leader and Rajya Sabha member had any Maoist link.

Independent member Pratap Chandra Sarangi said the Maoist camp had been split into two groups.

“One group has links with Mohapatra, while the other supports the chief minister,” he said.

He said that Mili Panda, wife of Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda, had paid tributes to Naveen’s mother, the late Gyan Patnaik, on her death anniversary yesterday.

In another development, BJD legislator from Jagatsinghpur Bishnu Charan Das and district superintendent of police Satyabrata Bhoi said they had received threat letters from the rebels asking them to give up the drive to displace people from the Posco project area.

The letters, written in Odia and sent from Jagatsinghpur post office, warned the MLA and the district police chief to dissociate from the Posco project as they felt the land acquisition process was “anti-people”.

Bhoi said: “The matter is under investigation. However, we are doubtful about the genuineness of the letters. It could also be a foul play by those opposed to the project.”

Das said: “I am not competent enough to state whether or not the letter was genuine .”

The veracity of the letter is being examined keeping in view the fact that the Erasama-Balikua area near the Posco project site had become a Maoist hideout in the past.

Last year, Maoist posters were found at many places in Erasama block. Members of the United Action Committee, an outfit espousing the cause of the Posco plant, had also been issued threat letters purportedly by the Maoists asking them to drop their stand in favour of the South Korean steel manufacturer.

However, police sources refused to reveal whether similar letters dispatched in the past were actually sourced from the Maoist cadres.

Maoist leader Dushmanta alias Mangu Biswal, a key individual in the left-wing outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist) arrested last year, hailed from this region.

The police had unearthed the rebel’s network and its link to Erasama in September 2008. They had also arrested about a dozen rebels.

“The police are keeping a close watch on possible Maoist activity in the district. Though some rebels have emerged from these areas, the left-wing network had ceased to exist,” said Bhoi.