BHUBANESWAR: The Kharavel Nagar police here on Wednesday served notices to three state BJP leaders for allegedly circulating a “fake” letter of Odisha police on Monday.Police said BJP circulated a fake intelligence report that claimed chief minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik should not contest from Hinjili in view of ‘significant dissatisfaction among the local people’. The letter, dated March 15, 2019, suggested Naveen contest the polls from alternate assembly segments—Rourkela, Bijepur, Balangir or Titilagarh. The letter also contained adverse remarks against the CM in connection with ambitious pro-farmer KALIA scheme.“We have summoned BJP’s Samir Mohanty, Golak Mohapatra and Tankadhara Tripathy as they showed the fake letter in a press conference here on Monday. They have been asked to produce the letter before the investigating officer and inform the source from where they got it,” deputy commissioner of police Anup Kumar Sahoo told TOI. While Mohanty has been asked to produce the document on Thursday, Mohapatra and Tripathy have been instructed to comply with the police notice on March 23 and March 24, respectively.Police said a similar fake letter went viral in the run-up to the 2018 Karnataka assembly polls as well. While the heading and the first paragraph bear resemblance with the Odisha ‘fake letter’, the rest was allegedly manipulated to fit the context related to the state (Odisha). The Karnataka fake letter, too, suggested alternative constituencies for then chief minister Siddaramaiah.“We found ‘state intelligence branch’ (SIB) written on the Odisha fake letter. No such wing called SIB exists in the intelligence directorate of Odisha police. No date was put over the stamp, which too was doctored,” another police officer said.BJP rubbished allegations of circulating the letter. “We got the letter from social media. Police are acting like a puppet for the ruling BJD,” Mohanty said. On Tuesday, BJD and BJP moved the chief electoral officer and lodged complaints regarding the intelligence letter. BJD demanded action against BJP for allegedly circulating the fake letter to tarnish the ruling regional party’s image. The BJP, on the other hand, sought a high level inquiry by a Central agency to unravel the truth behind the intelligence letter.

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