Bhubaneswar: BJD president Naveen Patnaik has come out in support of his close aide VK Pandian and clarified that the bureaucrat-turned-politician was not involved in any of the party activities.

“I want to state here clearly that the former legislator was expelled from the party a few years ago because he was indicted in a chit-fund case and spent some years in jail. I want to clarify again that he doesn’t belong to the party,” the BJD supremo said referring to a remark of former BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy, who directly blamed Pandian for the party’s defeat in the last election.

“I also want to state clearly that Kartikeyan Pandian, in the past, has done a lot of good work not only for the state, but also for the party. So, he shouldn’t be criticised or blamed for anything. Also, he left the party more than 10 months ago and is not involved in any of the party’s activities,” he said

Patnaik also strongly denounced the leaders holding meeting in a hotel instead of Sankha Bhawan’, the party’s state headquarters.

“I would like to state here that I disapprove of any meetings in hotels held by party members. They have the party office ‘Sankha Bhawan’, which is a large building where they have been told and should hold their meetings.”