BHUBANESWAR: Former minister Damodar Rout continued to embarrass the ruling BJD in the Assembly over the issue of his resignation from the Cabinet by stating that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik may have asked him to quit because of some political compulsions.Speaker Pradip Amat on Wednesday disallowed Rout’s plea for making a statement on his privilege notice against Revenue Minister Surya Narayan Patro. Amat said that there can be no further debate on a personal explanation given by Rout on the reasons behind his resignation from the Cabinet.Rout said as the agriculture minister he had attended the Akshaya Tritiya celebrations along with the Chief Minister on May 6 and the latter had appreciated the arrangements at the function. “But only three days later on May 9, he lost confidence in me,” Rout added.Several Congress leaders, however, requested the Speaker to reconsider the decision on Rout’s plea for making a statement on his privilege notice. The Speaker said that the notice was under his examination.Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh said the Speaker should have allowed Rout to make a statement as he had allowed Jayanarayan Mishra (BJP) to do so on Tuesday. “How can you allow one MLA and disallow another?” he questioned. The Speaker, however, observed that there is a difference between a personal explanation and privilege notice. Rout has brought a privilege notice against Patro for his statement that the Chief Minister asked him to resign for his remarks against Dalits. Besides, Patro had also said that Rout had lost the confidence of the Chief Minister since 2009. The BJD member moved the privilege motion against Patro saying his rights as a legislator had been hurt due to the Minister’s remarks in the House last Saturday.
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