October 26,1998

Two affidavits implicate the chief minister in sex scandals. But it might not be curtains for him as yet. 

By Ruben Banerjee

Politicians rarely lose their cool in public. But Orissa Chief Minister Janaki Ballav Patnaik has been losing it rather frequently of late. While he is seen pouring uncensored vitriol on his political opponents every other day, the latest target of his ire is the media. "Muck-raking scavengers" and "gutter inspectors" are among the more charitable expressioHonour Amartya Sen but keep him out of public policy ns he uses when referring to the media.

There is a reason for such intemperate behaviour. After a long time, the Orissa patriarch is confronted with a snowballing crisis that threatens to not only besmirch his reputation but unseat him as well. The real cause of Patnaik's anger are two damaging affidavits against him in the past one month -- the first by a retired director-general of police (DGP) and the second by a former chairman of a state corporation -- levelling a slew of accusations, ranging from criminal conspiracy and subversion of justice to sexual peccadilloes. Given their salacious nature, the charges have got wide publicity in the press and virtually set Orissa on fire. Naturally, Patnaik is seeing red.

"It is a conspiracy mounted against me by some frustrated elements," protests a livid Patnaik. But there is no let up in the heat generated by the two affidavits. The Opposition is already baying for his blood. "With his morality in doubt, he has forfeited all authority to rule," says Manmohan Samal, state BJP general secretary. Ranendra Pratap Swain, a Janata Dal legislator agrees, saying, "Even Clinton would appear to be a saint compared to Patnaik. The sooner he goes, the better it is for Orissa."

The public response has been equally vociferous. The state observed a day's bandh recently and last week Patnaik had to face angry demonstrations and black flags while on his district tours. When he visited Burla in western Orissa, the locals there declared a curfew in the area. Now the chief minister's opponents within his own party have begun to pressure the Congress high command for his replacement. Even his Cabinet is divided, with at least seven ministers refusing to sign a Patnaik-sponsored pledge reaffirming the Cabinet's faith in him. Though many of the accusations are unsubstantiated, they have brought him under a cloud and triggered speculation about his imminent removal.

That Patnaik's opponents would ask for nothing less than his scalp was only to be expected. Whatever the reasons and motives behind the affidavits, their contents were explosive. Former state DGP Amiya Bhusan Tripathy was the first to target the chief minister in a sworn affidavit filed in the Bhubaneswar high court following directions from the court to do so.

The court has been hearing a public interest petition regarding the on-going CBI inquiry into the alleged molestation last year of a woman named Anjana Mishra by former state advocate-general Indrajit Ray. Tripathy was the DGP when Ray, as advocate-general, had called the lady to his official residence and reportedly outraged her modesty. Mishra lodged a complaint with the police on July 19 last year. Following a public outcry over the incident, two weeks later the case was handed over to the CBI. But the chief minister refused to sack Ray for over a year and it was only mounting public pressure that forced Ray to finally put in his papers about two months ago.

Tripathy's testimony has now dragged the chief minister into what was essentially a Ray versus Mishra legal battle. Besides accusing Patnaik of doing his best to shield Ray and scuttling a free and fair probe, the former police chief dealt the severest of blows by hinting that both the chief minister and the former advocate-general shared a passion for women. In his affidavit, Tripathy talks about Patnaik's visits to a "particular lady" and also claims to know of a taped confession of a woman who was arrested while soliciting. The former DGP claims the woman admitted to having been taken to the chief minister's official residence for "perverse sexual acts".

Though many find Tripathy's references to Patnaik's alleged sexual misdemeanours irrelevant and inconsequential, the retired police chief maintains they help in exposing the Patnaik-Ray nexus. Tripathy claims the chief minister transgressed his authority time and again to shield Ray. He also says Patnaik instructed him to dilute the case against Ray, tampered with the forensic report on Mishra's torn clothes and directed him to visit Delhi to press the then CBI chief R.C. Sharma to slow down the probe into the case.

Sensing the grave implications of Tripathy's accusations, the state Government has launched a massive damage-control exercise. Denials are coming from all and sundry -- right from the chief secretary and the Orissa Police Mahasangh to another retired director-general of police who apparently had nothing to do with the case -- for punching holes in Tripathy's version.

But the whole episode just refuses to fade away. If anything, it's become even murkier following another purported affidavit by Jaydev Panda, former chairman of Orissa Agro Industries Corporation. Panda's affidavit, sworn before a notary and then sent to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, is all the more damaging. Among other things, Panda has accused the chief minister of "stealing" his "wife's affection". The matter did not end there. Soon after, the affidavit found its way to the press, Panda recanted and claimed that he had never filed any such affidavit. The police too jumped into the fray, raiding the notary's residence without a search warrant and then claiming the notary had denied having attested any such affidavit. The matter, the administration thought, had been laid to rest. But it boomeranged last week when the notary, Madhu Madhab Jena, affirmed before the sub-divisional magistrate that such an affidavit had indeed been attested and that he was being harassed by the authorities.

With things getting complicated, there's a distinct possibility the high court would take serious note of Tripathy's testimony since it was filed under court orders. To ascertain whether Panda had actually filed an affidavit or not, the court may decide to obtain the original copy, opening up the possibility of dragging Sonia into the unseemly affair as the document was supposedly sent to her.

As the issue snowballs, the chief minister could sink deeper into the sleaze. However, by virtue of having been the chief minister for 13 long years, Patnaik is still deeply entrenched in the state and even the party high command realises that discarding him summarily could pose a problem. But if the controversy continues to exercise the public mind for long, the high command could well be forced to change its mind. Whatever the political repercussions for Patnaik, the two affidavits have definitely stirred a hornet's nest in the state. But Patnaik, though stung, hasn't been felled yet. He has fought back similar situations in the past. Will he emerge unscathed once more?

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