Impasse continues in Odisha Assembly over chitfund issue

Odisha Assembly was paralysed for the sixth consecutive day today amid noisy scenes as the impasse continued over chitfund scam with Congress and BJP demanding Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's resignation and ruling BJD seeking an apology from the Leader of opposition.
Members of both the Treasury bench and Opposition were at loggerheads over the chitfund issue, stalling business in the House.
The House could function barely for eight minutes yesterday and the situation was same today as Speaker Niranjan Pujari adjourned the proceedings at least five times.
The Speaker also announced that the demand of planning and convergence department would be passed through guillotine. Yesterday, the demand of panchayati raj department was also passed in a similar manner.

While opposition Congress and BJP members demanded clarification and resignation of Chief Minister Patnaik, the ruling BJD MLAs asked Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra of Congress to tender an unconditional apology.
The Treasury bench members accused Mishra of misleading the House by asking certain questions to the Chief Minister on Tuesday and saying a particular SBI account had received Rs 8 crore in a single day.

Mishra had wanted the Chief Minister to clarify whether the person who deposited the amount was linked to the chitfund scam and also sought to know whether it was BJD's bank account.
Yesterday, law minister Arun Kumar Sahoo had told the House that the bank account belonged to BJD and Rs 8 crore was deposited in that on one day.

As soon as the House assembled for the day, Congress and BJP MLAs rushed to the Well demanding resignation of Patnaik.
The ruling BJD members demanded an unconditional apology from Mishra accusing him of misleading the House and the people of Odisha under the cover of asking questions to the Chief Minister.
"We wanted to request the Speaker to allow a discussion on the chitfund issue. But, as the ruling party members began shouting, we realised the Speaker is in no mood to pay heed to our request.
"So, we raised our voice. The BJD members have stalled the House for three consecutive days as they don't want to discuss the chitfund issue," Congress chief whip Taraprasad Bahinipati alleged.

BJD's Pratap Jena, however, outside the House said, "Shouting of the ruling members is justified as they had demanded an unconditional apology from the Leader of Opposition for furnishing wrong and false information in the House time and again."
BJP's Pradip Purohit said earlier the allegation was against minister Sanjay Dasburma on his alleged links with chitfund firms.
Now it was clear that the state government was involved in this scam as the Chief Minister is reluctant to give a clarification on the issues in the Assembly, he said.
"The Chief Minister is behaving like an escapist as he is aware he has no reply to place in the House," Purohit said.