Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jagannath Pradhan was arrested in Bhubaneswar on Thursday after protests by Odisha bureaucrats against the assault on a senior official, The Indian Express reported.

On Monday, a group of men assaulted a municipal official in Bhubaneswar and dragged him out of his office during a weekly grievance hearing session.

The official, Additional Commissioner Ratnakar Sahoo of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, alleged in his police complaint that six to seven unknown men entered his chamber and aggressively asked him if he had spoken to Pradhan.

Sahoo told the men he had spoken to the BJP leader on the phone earlier in the day. He alleged that the group then tried to drag him by his shirt collar into a vehicle, demanding that he go to the BJP leader and apologise. It was not clear what the attackers wanted the official to apologise for.

More than 3,600 officials, 2,400 from the Odisha Administrative Services and 1,200 from the Odisha Revenue Services, had been on strike for the past three days, paralysing essential public services across the state, The Telegraph reported.

The employee associations allege that Pradhan is the prime accused in the attack on Sahoo.

Odisha Administrative Services Association President Jyoti Ranjan Singh told The Telegraph that the incident was an attack on “the dignity of the entire public service”.

Though Pradhan had condemned the assault, he later alleged that the municipal corporation official had misbehaved with a woman sanitation worker for joining rallies conducted by the chief minister and prime minister, The Indian Express reported.

Pradhan had also alleged that the officer misbehaved with him when he inquired about the incident.

On Thursday evening, the BJP leader appeared before the office of deputy commissioner of police and was arrested shortly after, the newspaper reported.

“He surrendered before the police,” The Indian Express quoted Bhubaneswar Deputy Commissioner of Police Jagmohan Meena as saying. “He was told about the offence and the prima facie evidence against him in the case. We arrested him and sent him to court.”

Pradhan’s supporters, meanwhile, staged a dharna outside the deputy commissioner of police’s office following his arrest.

Pradhan has been unsuccessfully contesting on a BJP ticket since 2014 from the Bhubaneswar-Central assembly constituency. He lost the 2024 assembly election by 37 votes.

Earlier, five persons had been arrested in the assault case. They have been charged under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including attempt to murder.