Bijay Shankar Das, a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) legislator from the Tirtol constituency in Jagatsinghpur, Odisha has put himself in an embarrassing situation after he reportedly failed to turn up for his own wedding.
Infuriated by the MLA’s recklessness, his fiancee filed a police complaint against the BJD MLA for cheating and harassment. In her complaint, she also accused the BJD MLA of running a sex racket. The MLA was booked under various sections of the IPC, including 420 (cheating), 195A (threatening any person to give false evidence) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy).
The State Congress and the BJP also jumped into the fray once the drama became public. The opposition parties demanded an independent investigation into the woman’s allegations.
Interestingly, merely a day after his fiancee lodged a complaint of cheating as he failed to turn up at their wedding, ruling BJD’s Tirtol MLA Bijaya Shankar Das on Sunday said that he is ready to marry her in the next 60 days. The excuse he gave for not attending his own wedding was that ‘he forgot about it’.
In what transpired, Bijay Shankar Das and his girlfriend Somalika Das had opted to marry in a civil ceremony and had set June 17 (Friday) as the day for their marriage registration. However, the MLA failed to appear at the Jagatsinghpur sub-registrar office on the scheduled day.
Despite the fact that Somalika arrived on time at the marriage registrar’s office, neither the MLA nor any of his family members did. After nearly three hours of waiting, the woman realised she had been stood up and left the office. The next day itself, Somalika filed a police complaint against the MLA. “We had applied for marriage registration at the office of the sub-registrar on May 17. He had promised me, we will have a court marriage on this day at the sub-registrar office. However, he didn’t keep his promise,” Somalika was quoted by India Today as saying.
He accused the MLA of cheating and harassment. She also alleged that the MLA’s relatives are threatening her and her family members. She further alleged that the MLA was running a sex racket to raise money for election expenses.
Somalika also alleged that Bijaya Shankar had tampered with his Matric mark sheet. Notably, the MLA’s father late Bishnu Charan Das was the Minister of School and Mass Education at that time.
The MLA refuted the allegations meted at him. He said that he is ready to marry her in the next 60 days. “As per norms, the marriage registration needs to be completed within 90 days of applying for it. We still have 60 days left for marriage registration. I haven’t received any information from anyone regarding registration of marriage today,” Das told the media.
