Ink was thrown at V. K. Pandian, influential bureaucrat and private secretary to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, during his tour to Puri district on Saturday.
Puri Collector Samarth Verma, who was accompanying Mr. Pandian, also received ink stains on the campus of UGS College, Satyabadi, about 20 km from district headquarter town of Puri.
The youth, who was accused of throwing the ink, was whisked away from the spot by police personnel. He was identified as Bhaskar Sahu of Kanas area of Puri district. Mr. Pandian was interacting with members of Self Help Groups when the attack took place. He continued his public interaction programme with ink marks on face.
Umakant Samantray, Biju Janata Dal MLA of Satyabadi, claimed the attacker was a frontline worker of Bharatiya Janata Party and the ink attack was a manifestation of dire desperation on the part of BJP, which was gradually losing hope for a good show in the next elections.
In the past few months, Mr. Pandian has been moving with heavy security arrangements and flying down from Bhubaneswar to different districts to review development programmes and collect grievance directly from people.
Opposition parties termed the tours by an IAS officer, who is apparently vested with huge power, as subversion authority of an elected government.
“We condemn the ink attack. But discontentment among people was growing against Mr. Pandian who exercises enormous power in Odisha. The MPs and MLAs of Biju Janata Dal have just become non-entities in the State politics,” said Sajjan Sharma, a senior BJP leader.
In a fiery editorial on Friday, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, a BJD MLA and editor of Sambad, a leading Odia newspaper, questioned the authority vested with Mr. Pandian and asked, “Who holds higher authority – minister or a secretary”? Mr. Patnaik also hit out that BJD MPs and MLA have reduced themselves to ordinary workers leaving the IAS officer to take the centerstage in each meeting organised in the districts.
For almost a decade now, Mr. Pandian has been considered a power centre in Odisha politics as he is the closest bureaucrat to Odisha CM. He is present in almost all major meetings attended by Odisha CM. He has been appointed as secretary of the 5T (Team work, technology, transparency, transformation and time limit) initiative. The official position of secretary to 5T initiative gave him overarching power to review and monitor every programme across departments.
While almost all BJD MPs and MLAs take utmost care not to share the stage with Mr. Pandian, Gopalpur MLA and former minister Pradeep Kumar Panigrahi, who was expelled from BJD on the charge of anti-people activities, has recently threatened to remain present at the venue where the private secretary to CM would hold a meeting in his constituency.
