Five days after a BJP Zilla Parishad (ZP) candidate from Kalimela block of Malkangiri district in Odisha remained untraceable, the get together on Thursday lodged a grievance with the native police alleging involvement of a house guard.
Rina Kabasi, a civil engineer graduate who stop her job within the Railways to contest the zilla parishad elections on a BJP ticket, reportedly went lacking on January 23. According to her relations, she submitted an utility for withdrawal of her nomination on January 23 and has not returned house since then.
In Tumbaguda village, a distant village of Kalimela block, Rina’s brother Bhima stated, “She was being asked to withdraw her nomination but she had decided not to. On Wednesday, one person who identified himself as Sudhir Kumar Swain and works as a homeguard had come home and given a blank check to us. We had denied the offer but we suspect that he is behind my sister’s disappearance.”
Based on this, the BJP block unit on Thursday lodged a grievance in opposition to Sudhir. “Rina was a strong contender for our party. She was repeatedly forced to withdraw her nomination. But she did not give in to the monetary offers by the BJD. We suspect that the BJD is behind her disappearance and used this said person as an agent. We have demanded that this person be identified and arrested at the earliest,” BJP’s Kalimela mandal president Ratnakar Panigrahi stated.
BJD nevertheless has denied any involvement within the disappearance of the candidate. Chitrakonda MLA and BJD district president Purna Chandra Baka denied the fees leveled by BJP. “These are baseless. The police should examine the matter,” he stated.
“We have acquired a written grievance and are trying into the matter. The house guard is absent from obligation because the final one yr and proceedings in opposition to him as per guidelines is underway,” Malkangiri SP Nitesh Wadhwani stated.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
