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Cuttack Mayor offers to quit if charges against her are proved

CUTTACK: Taking the fight to the opposition camp, Mayor Nibedita Pradhan on Saturday announced that she would quit the post and take political ‘sanyas’ if any of the corruption allegations made against her by some corporators were proved.

As many as 20 corporators from the ruling BJP and BJD last week had staged a sit-in dharna in front of the municipal commissioner’s office demanding stringent action against the Mayor for her alleged role in corruption involving purchase of mosquito larvicide (ML) oil, desilting of drains and repair of Saheed Bhawan which is managed by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC).

Speaking to newspersons on Saturday, the firebrand BJP leader denied all charges levelled against her and said: “If any of the allegations against me are proved in any court of law then I will resign from my post and quit politics for all time to come”. Deputy Mayor Madhu Sahu of the BJD also lent his support to Ms. Pradhan saying all purchases and work orders of the CMC were carried after due clearance from the respective committees and the council.

“If the corporators are now raising such allegations, where were they when the committees and the council (of which, the corporators are members) passed the resolutions,” Mr. Sahu said. “They ( corporators concerned) have some hidden agenda. But we will not allow them to succeed in their design,” the two leaders asserted.

Equipped with a recent High Court order by which the court has given a clean chit to the CMC on ML oil procurement, the Mayor said no lapses were made at the civic body end on this issue. The HC in its order observed: “ML oil was not adulterated in the hands of CMC… but substandard quality of ML oil was manufactured (by IOC) and supplied to CMC”.

The HC ordered for a personal appearance of IOC CMD in the court on July 23.

On allegations about cleaning of drains, the Mayor clarified that since the HC had ordered for frequent desilting of drains, the estimated expenditure for the purpose had increased from Rs 80 lakhs to Rs 1.31 crores per annum.

Similarly, on allegation of swindling of funds in the repair of Saheed Bhawan, the documents of which were seized by vigilance wing of the police, the Mayor said the repair work of the bhawan had not yet started.

“How can there be swindling of funds when the work has not yet started,” the Mayor questioned.

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