'No Corporator responsible for loot of relief materials'

Two Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MLAs and the Mayor of Cuttack Municipal Corporation today claimed that no CMC Corporator was responsible for the loot of the relief materials.
Addressing a press conference here BJD MLA of Cuttack- Barabati Debashis Samantray, party legislator of Cuttack- Choudwar Pravat Biswal and Cuttack city Mayor S K Ghosh claimed that no Corporator (including suspended BJD Corporator Madhusudhan Sahu) were responsible for the relief loot incident.
"Instead, the government officials of CMC were wholly and solely responsible for relief distribution mismanagement which was done in contravention to the Relief Code," the three BJD leaders said while jointly addressing mediapersons.

Samantray criticised the Vigilance raid on the houses of 29 Corporators of the city, including 21 from BJD, in connection with the matter and said Vigilance officials should have assessed the matter properly before obtaining search warrants against the people's representatives.
Samantray termed the vigilance raids on the houses of the Corporators as "nothing but spreading panic among the Corporators."
Earlier, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had asked the vigilance directorate to probe into the scandal and suspended senior party corporator Madhusudan Sahu, former deputy mayor of the city who was currently heading the party's city unit, for his alleged role in the incident.

The state Government had also taken action against the then CMC commissioner N R Mohapatra and his deputy J N Kujur in the aftermath of the looting incident.
Meanwhile, mounting its demand to arrest the relief looters, Opposition Congress today staged a protest dharna in front of the State Vigilance Directorate here and expressed surprise that even after a week's investigation into it, the anti-corruption wing has not yet registered a case in this connection.