The alleged sexcapade of senior BJP minister Manmohan Samal rocked the Orissa Assembly on Saturday with the Opposition stalling the proceedings demanding his resignation along with a statement from the CM.

Though Samal dismissed the allegation as “false, baseless and politically motivated”, the agitated Opposition members insisted on his resignation forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House for the day. Samal, however, admitted that he had met a woman from his Assembly constituency Dhamnagar during his stay at Orissa Bhavan in Delhi in November and helped arrange her stay there. “I consider this my duty as a public representative,” he said.

Deputy leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra said the BJP had proved that it was a “party of difference”. He referred to several Oriya dailies publishing reports of the alleged sexual escapade.“However, neither the minister nor the Government came forward to contradict the news. It was, therefore, construed that it was true.”

“Whenever any BJD minister faced any slur in the past, he or she was asked to resign. Even a Speaker of the State Assembly had to step down following a sexual harassment slur. But when a similar allegation was leveled against a BJP minister, he was not resigning,” said Mishra. “Even CM Naveen Patnaik has no guts to ask the BJP minister to quit,” alleged Mishra.

When the House reassembled in the afternoon, Samal explained that no complaint had been lodged regarding the “so-called” incident.