Bhubaneswar: Protesting the attack on a senior party leader in Delang block of Pipili assembly constituency, a delegation of BJD leaders on Monday met the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Sushil Kumar Lohani, and demanded stern action against those involved in the incident.
The BJD delegation, led by Rajya Sabha member Dr. Sasmit Patra, submitted a memorandum to the CEO.
The delegation in their memorandum alleged that on April 11, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders launched a violent attack on the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) senior leader and Labour Minister Susant Singh at Delang.
They attacked him and smashed the front and rear windshields of the car in which he was present apart from other damages, alleged the party members.
Prior to the above incident, they violently attacked some party workers so severely that two of them are being treated for injuries in Pipili Assembly constituency while one of them has to be shifted to Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar after his health condition deteriorated, said the party leaders. Besides, the BJP workers also abused the family members of those injured BJD workers.
“Violence in politics and elections is nothing new for the BJP. In the Bijepur by-elections in 2018 as well, the BJP had undertaken severe electoral violent attacks which were followed by continued electoral violence in the 2019 General Elections in Odisha. Recently, 50 lakh rupees were seized from two BJP leaders in Pipili which they wanted to use to illegally to influence the Pipili by-poll.
You can well understand the severity and sensitivity of this matter. The BJP has been trying to import into Odisha their electoral violence tactics on the same lines as seen in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and turn the peace-loving Odisha into a violence-affected State. The people of Odisha are peace-loving and have been defeating the BJP continuously due to the fear that BJP will try to turn Odisha into another UP or Bihar in terms of political violence. The people of Pipili will again defeat the BJP in Pipili by-polls and thereby defeat their political and electoral violence agenda.
We demand that strict and exemplary action be undertaken against those BJP leaders and workers who are guilty of such violent attacks and to ensure that strict measures are taken so that the BJP does not illegally influence the Pipili by-poll through its violence and attacks on the Biju Janata Dal leaders and their women family members, ” they alleged.
