BHUBANESWAR: Breaking his silence on the issue of power centre in the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) raised by disgruntled party leaders, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said there is no power centre in the party other than him and all decisions are taken by him.“There is no other power centre,” the Chief Minister said, a day after party vice-president Damodar Rout raised the issue for the second time saying that a second power centre in a regional party is like cancer and breeds all types of corruption and nepotism.Rout, who was dropped from the ministry on May 10, had on Saturday said that the Chief Minister is yet to make it clear that he is the only power centre in the BJD and takes decision on his own. The former minister had also said earlier that the Chief Minister was implementing the agenda of Rajya Sabha member Pyarimohan Mohapatra instead of taking his own decision.“Pyari is the real power centre while Naveen is the executing authority,” Rout had said.Mohapatra also broke his silence on the issue on Sunday. There is only one power centre, the Chief Minister, who is also the president of the BJD, Mohapatra said, adding that there is no scope or need for having a second power centre.Rout had said that “the person acting as the second power centre has not denied the allegation made by me.”Criticism of Naveen’s style of functioning and defiance of his diktat are growing in the BJD after the Cabinet reshuffle in which three ministers, including Rout, were dropped and five inducted.Former minister Debasis Nayak had also raised the issues of second power centre and lack of inner-party democracy in the BJD. He had alleged that corruption had spread to various levels of the Government resulting in several multi-crore scams. Nayak was suspended from the party on May 29.
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