Congress MLA demands dismissal of Mass Education Minister

Bhubaneswar, Aug 16 (UNI) Congress MLA Umesh Swain today accused Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of protecting School and Mass Education Minister Bishnu Das, allegedly involved in the manipulation of High School examination marks of his son.

Addressing a news conference here, Mr Swain said the Chief Minister should have first dismissed the Minister and then initiated a criminal case against him for ''fraudulent'' methods adopted by him for his son to obtain more marks in his High School Examination.

However, the Chief Minister ordered a probe into the matter by State Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy, who subsequently gave a clean chit to the Minister, he alleged.

The Congress MLA said the Opposition had averted the probe into the manipulation of marks by the Chief Secretary and demanded investigation either by the Crime Branch or the CBI to unearth the truth.

''But, the Chief Minister did not conceded to the Opposition's demand and tried to shield his minister by ordering a probe into the matter by the state chief secretary,'' he further alleged.

He also claimed that at the instance of the School and Mass Education Minister, the Examination Controller and the Secretary of the Board of Secondary Education had manipulated the marks of the Minister's son.

Mr Das has, however, denied the allegations against him, and described it as the handiwork of his opponents. He told news persons last week that he himself ordered for a rechecking of the examination papers of his son after he felt that on some papers his son had secured more than the expected marks.

The Minister said on verification it was found that the total marks obtained by his son was not 602, but 478, with certain discrepancies being reported in the tabulation and entry of marks in the computer.

Meanwhile, students of various colleges in the capital city and other places in the state today resorted to agitation and burnt effigies of the Mass and Education Minister demanding his dismissal from the government in the ''mark scandal of his son''.

UNI