Former CRPF DG joins BJP, likely to fight Lok Sabha polls from Cuttack
Prakash Mishra who was also the Odisha Police chief praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India’s response to the Pulwama terror attack.
Former Director General of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Prakash Mishra who once also headed Odisha police on Sunday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and promptly trained his guns on the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government in Odisha describing it as “discredited”.
Mishra who retired as the CRPF head in February 2016, praised the Centre’s response to the Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 troopers of the central police force.
“All the countries are praising India the way we responded to the terror attack on CRPF at Pulwama. Whenever there was an attack on security, PM Modi would speak to us directly. Instead of supporting such an inspiring leadership, if we follow a discredited government in Odisha, then we will have no future,” he said shortly after joining the party.
BJP sources said Mishra is likely to be the party’s candidate from Cuttack which goes to polls in the third phase on April 23. Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha seats. The BJD had swept the 2014 elections winning 20 of the seats while the BJP won only one.
Mishra is the second high-profile former all India service officer to have joined BJP in last few months. In November last year, senior IAS officer and joint secretary in the panchayati raj ministry, Aparajita Sarangi quit the service to join the BJP. Sarangi will contest from the prestigious Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency.
Mishra, who served as Odisha’s Director General of Police between June 2012 and June 2014 was known for controlling the Maoist menace in southern Odisha districts and oversaw a peaceful Assembly and Lok Sabha polls in 2014.
He was shunted out of the post of DGP in June 2014 and faced a vigilance case three months later over allegations of corruption during his tenure as CMD of Odisha Police Housing and Welfare Corporation. Though the Odisha high court and Supreme Court quashed the vigilance case, it nixed his chance of becoming CBI director in 2014.
The high court in its order had said that it was not uncommon for honest and upright officers to be victimised by political establishments. It also chastised the director of vigilance for not “ensuring free and fair investigation before registering a case against the officer”.
