In line of BJP fire over Mahua row, Pinaki Misra: BJD’s Delhi face, four-term Puri MP

In his affidavit, Hiranandani, while referring to his friendship with Mahua, stated: “I also felt that, through her (Mahua), I would get support in other States ruled by the Opposition, because she bonded extremely well with other leaders of the Opposition like Sh. Gandhi, Sh. Shashi Tharoor and Sh. Pinaki Mishra, with whom also she shared close relations.”

Pointing to Hiranandani’s affidavit, the BJP also sought an explanation from Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik on the matter.

Pinaki, 64, rejected the BJP’s allegation as false, warning the party of legal action.

“It’s unfortunate that the BIP Odisha has deemed it fit to make a totally false attack on me based on a malicious and utterly unproven allegation floating in the public domain,” Pinaki said in his statement, adding that as an MP for over 25 years his “personal record of public service is unblemished”.

Pinaki asked the BJP to fight politically in Odisha rather than “resorting to cheap publicity gimmicks for some quick airtime”. He said he was seriously considering a legal response through direct court action and would take a decision in due course.

Belonging to a prominent Odia Brahmin family, Pinaki is the grandson of eminent poet and socialist leader Godabarish Misra, a Gandhian who was opposed to the caste system.

Pinaki’s father Lokanath Misra, two-term MLA, was initially with the Congress and later joined the Swatantra Party. He went on to serve as the Assam governor from 1991 to 1997.

Pinaki’s uncle Ranganath Misra became the 21st Chief Justice of India in 1990. Justice Dipak Misra, who became the 45th CJI in 2017, was Pinaki’s cousin.

The BJD leader, who completed his law degree from Delhi University in 1983, is a noted lawyer. In 1996, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Puri for the first time on a Congress ticket. He had then trounced the incumbent MP Braja Kishore Tripathy, who had contested on the Janata Dal ticket.

Tripathy, who had served as a Union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, took his revenge by defeating Pinaki in the 1998 election. Though Pinaki did not fight in 1999, he again lost as a Congress candidate to the then BJD nominee Tripathy in Puri in the 2004 election.

In 2009, Pinaki joined the exodus of the Congress leaders who switched to the BJD as the grand old party started losing its ground rapidly. Hours after he joined the BJD fold, Patnaik replaced Tripathy with Misra as its nominee for the Puri seat. He has since been winning from Puri for consecutive three terms on the BJD ticket.

Pinaki faced his toughest battle in the 2019 election when the BJP fielded its national spokesperson Sambit Patra against him. In this fierce contest, Pinaki managed to beat Sambit by just 11,714 votes despite Puri being known as a BJD bastion.

After his entry into the BJD, Pinaki managed to rise through the party ranks quickly because of his legal acumen and his clout in Delhi. He subsequently became the BJD’s face in the national capital, replacing Bhartruhari Mahtab as the leader of the BJD Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha in 2019.

One of the key advisors to the BJD on legal matters, Pinaki is a member of some key parliamentary committees.