Several senior BJD leaders, including Political Affairs Committee (PAC) chairman Bijay Mahapatra, MPs Bhatruhari Mahtab and Pravat Samantray, MLAs Prabhat Tripathy, Amar Satpathy, Bishnu Das, Kalpataru Das, Panchanan Kanungo, Maheswar Mahanty and Debi Misra courted arrest participating in the Raj Bhavan gherao programme. The call for the same was given by the Biju Yuva Janata Dal (BYJD).

Tension mounted when the BJD activists tried to forcibly break the police cordon in front of the Raj Bhavan. A scuffle ensued between the BJD workers and police. Police had to chase the activists away when some of them started pelting stones at them. Earlier, there was a scuffle between the BJD activists andpolice near the Indian Airlines office when demonstrators coming in a rally tried to break the police barricades.

The demonstrators also demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the agriculture scam and criticised the government for its all-round failure including deteriorating law and order situation, rising atrocities on women and rampant corruption at all levels of the government.

Elaborate security arrangements were made by the district administration to prevent any law and order situation during the gherao programme. As many as 15 platoons of police were deployed in front of the Raj Bhavan and other places on the route of the rally from Master Canteen square to the Raj Bhavan.

The president of the BJD and Union Minister for Steel and Mines Naveen Patnaik has congratulated the party workers for the programme and expressed regret for his absence. He called upon his party workers to get ready for a prolonged struggle against the corrupt government in the state in the comingdays.

However, the gherao programme turned out to be one-sided with leaders loyal to the party chief, including Leader of the Opposition Ramakrushna Patnaik remaining absent. Only seven party MLAs out of the total 29 courted arrest exposing the deep schisms in the party.