Bhubaneswar, Jan. 14: Congress leader and Union minister of state for chemical and fertilisers Srikant Jena has accused the BJD of having a secret understanding with Congress discard Soumya Ranjan Patnaik’s Ama Odisha to defeat the Congress in the recently-concluded Bhubaneswar civic polls.

In the Bhubaneswar civic polls that concluded on January 8, the Congress and the BJP failed to reach double-digit figures. While Congress managed to bag only two seats, the BJP won in four wards. The BJD swept the polls by winning 49 of the 67 wards.

Congratulating chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his team for their landslide victory in the civic polls, Jena sarcastically remarked: “The Congress was not prepared for a tie-up between Ama Odisha, the ruling party and the mining mafia. Had the Congress had an inkling, it would have been better prepared and the result would have been different.”

Incidentally, Jena had campaigned for the party during the polls. Ama Odisha, an NGO-turned-political-outfit led by expelled Congress leader Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, allegedly supported a number of Independent candidates in the Bhubaneswar civic polls.

“These Independent candidates played a significant role in the defeat of a number of Congress candidates,” said another Congress leader.

Accusing the BJD of spending huge money on its campaign, Jena said: “How could Congress candidates, who spent only around Rs 20,000, have faced the might of BJD candidates each of whom spent about Rs 20 lakh in the civic polls?”

Jena said even the Crime Branch or Central Bureau of Investigation would find it difficult to get to the bottom of the secret understanding between the “habitual bribe taker” and the “habitual bribe giver”.