Eleven years after he came to power in 2000 and regularly refuting charges of numerous scams and scandals that rocked the image of his government, Orissa chief minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik now finds himself in the dock.
After the Supreme Court’s direction on Monday for the CBI probe into the alleged `500-crore scam in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), an eerie silence reigned in the otherwise hustle bustle of state secretariat here while the BJP, the estranged ally of the BJD, did not miss the chance to condemn the state government saying “it has lost its face”.
“We have been alleging since long that there has been gross siphoning of MGNREGA fund in Orissa. Our allegation was vindicated by the Comptroller and Auditor-General Report 2009 and findings of the National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad. But, surprisingly, the state government didn’t accept hose reports and no action was taken against the accused,” senior BJD leader Bijoy Mohapatra said on Tuesday.