By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR:In a press conference, Biju Janata Dal leaders are making statements by holding press conferences to save their party’s then government from being defamed in the case of the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and the theft of files from the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), said BJP State General Secretary Shri Biranchi Narayan Tripathy in a press conference.
Mr. Tripathy said that when the issue of theft of files from the CMO came to light, Justice A.S. Naidu told the media that he had given a copy of the commission report in 2 volumes to the then BJD government. The said report was from 1500 to 2000 pages. If Justice Naidu gave a copy in one volume, then when the top leader of the Biju Janata Dal and the then Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was in the government, he kept the said report with him for 8 years, which has raised questions.
Did he keep the said report in 3 volumes and in 3 places? The report shows that he had the file with him from October 19, 2016 to June 4, 2024. Let us first explain why Naveen Patnaik did not make this file public at that time. After Naveen Babu left the government, all the files came to the CMO, but the file on the murder of Swami Laxmananand Saraswati did not come. In this regard, the BJP government had sent letters to former Chief Minister and current Leader of the Opposition Naveen Patnaik at various times regarding the file and made inquiries. But no reply was received from Naveen Patnaik.
On November 15, 2025, Naveen’s Personal Secretary (PS) wrote a letter to the Odisha government saying that the opposition leader had asked his PS to search for the file. Earlier, Naveen could have told the person in charge of the said file where the file was. But instead of doing so, Naveen and his party are misleading the people of Odisha by asking them to search for the file through PS. The people of Odisha want to know why the said file was not made public when he was in the government. On the other hand, an FIR has been lodged by the state government in this incident. The state’s largest and most credible investigative agency, the Crime Branch, is investigating the case. The investigation is currently underway as per the Indian judicial system, said Mr. Tripathy.
