Women are unsafe under BJD regime, alleges BJP

Bhubaneshwar: The Odisha state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit on Tuesday reprimanded the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for “rising atrocities” against women in the province. The party said the women folk in the state felt unsafe under the present Naveen Patnaik regime as some of the ministers and its legislators were found committing “heinous” crimes against them.

“It’s quite shocking that involvement of some ministers and MLAs in sexual exploitation of women have surfaced on many occasions. Besides, names of ruling party leaders have come up in mysterious deaths of some women and female children. This kind of scenario clearly disapproves the ruling BJD’s claim that it always stood for the cause of women,” said Ms Sahoo.

Quoting a woman from Nimapara who recently alleged that she was coaxed by some BJD leaders to come to the Bhubaneswar residence of former minister Samir Ranjan Dash for some “special mind-fresh interactions,” the BJP leader said this spoke how the ruling party leaders stoop low to satiate their sexual desire.

“When the Narendra Modi government at the Centre is constantly trying to empower women socially and economically and trying to enhance their dignity and honour, here we have a ruling party members of which have been found meting out shocking treatments to them. Dharmendra Sahoo, a  BJD leader of Nimpara was forced commit suicide as party’s senior leader and ex-minister Samir Ranjan Dash literally coaxed his wife to have relationship with him,” said Ms Sahoo said.

The saffron party leaders also named BJD lawmakers Srikanta Sahoo, Divya Shankar Mishra, Arun Sahoo, Jyoti Pangigrahi, Braja Pradhan and Bijaya Shankar Das and said they have also committed crimes of various nature against women.

There was, however, no reaction from the BJD, to Ms Sahoo’s charges.