Congress, BJP demand action against BJD MLA

Opposition Congress and BJP Friday demanded action against BJD MLA Debashish Samantray for allegedly manhandling the relative of slain CRPF jawan Manoj Kumar Behera during the funeral on February 16.

While Mahila Congress has filed a complaint at a police station in Cuttack, an RTI activist lodged a complaint against the BJD MLA at a police station in the state capital.

Samantaray has been in the eye of storm after a video of his misbehaviour with the kin of martyred CRPF Jawan Manoj Behera went viral.

Senior Congress leader Panchanan Kanungo demanded arrest of Samantray for showing disrespect to Pulwama martyrs kin and sought apology from Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He has also sought expulsion of Samantaray from the ruling party.

"The MLA has already apologised and the party will take a call on whether action need to be taken against him," BJD spokesman P K Deb said.

Meanwhile, in a video message, Chaitanya Behera, the alleged victim uncle of the martyr, said: "The MLA has not manhandled me. He called me to sit down near the body before final rite. Debashish Babu is a good man."
Stating that he was not aware that the man who pushed Oram, as a relative of the martyr, Samantray said: "I had made the man (uncle of Martyr Behera) to sit after he pushed Union Minister Jual Oram during guard of honour. I had no intention of hurting anyones feelings. I tender apology for that."