Bhubaneswar: Leaders denied tickets quitting parties

Bhubaneswar : As political parties of Odisha released lists of candidates for the ensuing Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, reports of resignations by leaders who fail to get tickets from the ruling BJD and Opposition BJP are pouring in from different parts of the State.

The State has witnessed the resignations of at least 10 leaders of different parties since Wednesday when BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik released the second list for the Assembly polls and the third list for the Lok Sabha polls.

Several other leaders have quit their respective parties in the past few days also. After being denied tickets, leaders have sent their resignation letters to Naveen from Ganjam, Balasore, Jagatsinghpur, Kandhamal and some other districts.

In Naveen’s home district of Ganjam, former deputy speaker of Assembly Rama Chandra Panda and BJD’s State council member T Gopi resigned on Thursday after the party nominated Bhrugu Baxipatra, a BJP turncoat, as the Lok Sabha candidate, dropping sitting MP Chandrasekhar Sahu.

Soro’s sitting MLA Parshuram Dhada quit the BJD after being dropped. Another prominent BJD leader Asit Patnaik from Bhadrak district also resigned from the party. He was the son of five-time Bhadrak MLA Jugal Patnaik and working for the party for 15 years aspiring for getting a party ticket.

“In 2019 elections, the party ignored me and fielded a new face in Bhadrak Assembly seat. Though it was an act of injustice since my father was the sitting MLA of Bhadrak, I did not raise any voice of dissent, being a loyal worker of BID,” he wrote to the party president. The former chairman of the Odisha Pisciculture Development Corporation Limited said the party ignored him once again.

Another BJD MLA, Ramesh Chandra Sai, who was denied re-nomination from Athamallik, sent his resignation letter to Naveen on Thursday evening.

Former Phulbani MLA Debendra Kanhar and former Jagatsinghpur district president Amarendra Das have also quit the regional party. Meanwhile, the supporters of Debendra Kanhar staged a demonstration in Phulbani and burnt effigies of Jayshree Kanhar, the BJD nominee for the Assembly segment, and former minister Padmanav Behera, who has been nominated for Birmaharajpur Assembly seat.

Behera said, “All people cannot be made happy. Some dissidence will remain and BJD knows how to manage them.”

Meanwhile, BJP State spokesperson Sonali Sahoo joined Congress on Thursday, shortly after resigning from the saffron party. Sonali said she decided to quit BJP and join Congress after being inspired by Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ and the party’s progressive ideas and policies. She had joined the saffron party in 2019 after quitting the Congress.

Congress leader Arindam Sarkhel also resigned from the party on Thursday. His wife Monideepa had joined the BJD a few days ago.

The State BJP headquarters here also witnessed noisy protest when hundreds of saffron party supporters opposed the candidature of Arabinda Dhali from Jaydev Assembly segment and Siri Mishra’s nomination from Hinjili.