Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Orissa Assembly vexed over sex scandal has sacrificed its scheduled business even of today in the altar of parliamentary probity even as Revenue Minister Manmohan Samal has asserted that he has done nothing wrong to earn queer headlines.
He has confessed in the Assembly that he had spent time with a lady namely Sanghamitra Singh in the official guest house of Orissa Government at New Delhi during the period from November 4 to 7, 2008; but that was cultural in nature, not immoral.
The Minister in his statement under direction from the Speaker has informed that the lady organizes a cultural event in his constituency known as Salandi Mahotsava. He had arranged her stay in the official guest-house at New Delhi to help her contact guests for the event and synchronized it with his own visit to the national capital in order to facilitate better coordination. His togetherness with her had no immorality and putting any insinuation in circulation would be wrong, the minister has maintained.
But the Opposition is not willing to take it so lightly. It wants the Minister to quit to save the state from further embarrassment and demands a statement from the Chief Minister over the issue so that the Government as a whole could be tested on the matrix of probity.
The CM is yet to react. Stalemate continues.