V K Pandian’s wife goes on childcare leave for 6 months

The BJP, which won the recently concluded assembly polls in Odisha, had during the campaign lodged multiple complaints accusing her of “actively participating in the elections as BJD’s front person”.

Known as one of the most powerful bureaucrats in Odisha’s power corridors, the 2000-batch Odisha cadre IAS officer was then ordered to be transferred by the poll panel.

When she was posted in the Mission Shakti department, where she worked for six years, the BJP alleged that the Mission Shakti’s functionaries were threatening the self help groups (SHGs) to stop their financial benefits if they failed to vote for the BJD.

The Mission Shakti department worked for economic empowerment of around 70 lakh rural women, who are a part of six lakh SHGs.

Pandian has, meanwhile, remained out of public glare since the BJD’s loss. He neither accompanied the CM to Raj Bhavan on June 5 to submit his resignation nor attended the meeting of BJD leaders with Patnaik at Naveen Niwas.

Amid reports that he has gone to Delhi Wednesday evening, BJD spokesperson Sasmit Patra Thursday clarified that Pandian has gone to Delhi “on the direction of the CM”.

Meanwhile, two retired IAS officers, Suresh Chandra Mohapatra and R Balakrishnan, posted as the advisors to the CM, have already resigned from their positions after the results. Similarly, IRTS officer Manoj Mishra, posted as the principal secretary of Odisha’s Electronics & Information Technology Department, has also resigned from his position.