Media baron and senior politician Soumya Ranjan Patnaik stepped down as the editor of the Odia newspaper ‘Sambad’, which he had been editing since its inception in 1984.
The move comes 10 days after he was removed from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), following a banner of revolt against chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his trusted aide VK Pandian.
Patnaik’s stepping down was announced in a front page news in Sambad on Monday. Tanaya Patnaik, his younger daughter and executive director of Sambad Group, succeeds him. The report said that Patnaik was stepping down due to ‘personal reasons’.
For the last few months, Patnaik has been attacking chief minister Naveen Patnaik as well his private secretary VK Pandian, through his newspaper columns, decrying lack of democracy in the party. Last month, in a front page editorial of Sambad, he compared the tour expenses of Pandian to all the districts with the Chandrayaan 3 mission. In his writings, he asked if officers were more important than ministers while urging Pandian to resign from IAS and join politics. Patnaik also made an explosive statement that chief minister Patnaik thought all his ministers as incapable for which he gets his work done by the private secretary.
Amid the tussle with the chief minister and his secretary Pandian, Patnaik was named as an accused in a case of loan fraud in his company by the Economic Offences Wing (EoW) of the Odisha Police. EOW officials raided the premises of Sambad following allegations that his company took crores of Rupees as loan from banks taken in the name of more than 300 employees of the newspaper by using fraudulent means and forged documents.
{{/usCountry}}Amid the tussle with the chief minister and his secretary Pandian, Patnaik was named as an accused in a case of loan fraud in his company by the Economic Offences Wing (EoW) of the Odisha Police. EOW officials raided the premises of Sambad following allegations that his company took crores of Rupees as loan from banks taken in the name of more than 300 employees of the newspaper by using fraudulent means and forged documents.
{{/usCountry}}EOW claimed that ₹50 crore of loan was fraudulently secured by the media baron between 2018 and 2023 using forgery and coercion. “Forged salary certificates were allegedly submitted by the newspaper. Once loan was sanctioned, the amount used to be withdrawn in cash. The EMIs were then paid by the newspaper, which the EOW described as a “well thought out” conspiracy and an organised bank fraud.