AFTER the controversy over sexual harassment case against former speaker Maheswar Mohanty for which he has forced to resign, Deputy Speaker Prahallad Dora is now embroiled in nepotism charges for trying to promote his son-in law Jayakrushna Pradhan, who works as a research assistant in the Assembly.

Sources said that Dora wanted to rush thought the file yesterday before his term as the acting Speaker expired.
Besides trying to promote his son-in-law to the post of research officers. Dora wanted to upgrade the posts of reporters in the Assembly to the rank of under secretary keeping a particular reporter in view.

However, Assembly employees came to know of this before the order was issued and staged dharna in front of the from of Secretary Kishore Chandra Barik. The employees raised the issue even as the filing of nomination papers for the new Speaker was going on.
General Secretary of the Assembly Employees Association Narayana Prasad Sahu told this paper that they called off the Dhahran in the evening after Speaker kishore Kumar Mohanty assured them that no decision will be taken in this regard.
Sahu said the Speaker had assured that he will study the matter after the Assembly session and take a decision keeping the interest of all employees in mind.

Dora’s order would have benefited only 12 of the 350 employees. If parliamentary system is to be adopted for the employees, is should be for all employees, Sahu said.

Though the issue has died down for the time being, it ha landed the Bharatiya Jantaya Party (BLP) to which Dora belongs, in an embarrassing situation.
When contacted, state BLP president Suresh Pujhari said that the legality of the order of the Deputy Speaker to upgrade the post of his son-in-law will be examined by the new Speaker.
The daughter of Dora, Chinmoyee also works as a junior assistant in the Assembly.