An additional general manager of Bokaro Steel Limited (BSL) has accused Bokaro MLA Biranchi Narayan and his supporters of assault, a charge the BJP legislator has denied.

The official, Ajit Kumar, has been admitted to Bokaro General Hospital with injuries near the right eye and head. According to him, around 11.45am on Tuesday he had gone to the site in Sector I where a park is coming up and a pond is being renovated through the MLA’s fund, and objected to the work being carried out without the mandatory clearance from the BSL.

“The contractor said that the MLA is coming; the MLA arrived on a bike with a large number of supporters and started abusing me and also assaulted me along with his supporters. I somehow escaped,” Ajit told reporters.

The BSL officers’ association has decided to lodge an FIR against the MLA.

“Elected representatives should behave responsibly, and such an act is completely unacceptable,” said A.K. Singh, president of the association. “Ajit Kumar was there to simply enforce the laid provisions. If the MLA has some complaint against Ajit Kumar then he could have talked to senior officers of BSL instead of resorting to vandalism.

“We will lodge an FIR after the health condition of Ajit Kumar improves and will also chalk out a plan of action against the deteriorating law and order situation in Bokaro where officers are facing difficulty in working,” Singh added.

The legislator rejected the allegations against him.

“I had only intervened in the scuffle between the contractor, Krishna Pandey, and Ajit Kumar which ensued after Ajit Kumar started to forcibly stop the construction of park and renovation of pond,” Narayan said.

“Ajit Kumar was illegally demanding money from the contractor to allow the construction work and first attacked the contractor.

“As per the laid provision, if there is some dispute over the jurisdiction of the land (where work is being done) then the issue is first raised before the estate court of BSL and after the ruling of estate court work can be stopped in presence of magistrate. There was no such case and instead Ajit Kumar went to extract money illegally from the contractor, which led to the scuffle,” he added.

Contacted, Bokaro city DSP Gyan Ranjan said: “We have yet not received any complaint regarding the beating of an officer by the Bokaro MLA; instead, the contractor had lodged a complaint against the Bokaro Steel town administration team of destroying a pavement yesterday (Monday) in Sector I.”