Bhubaneswar: Former BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy today raised several questions to BJD supremo and Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik following his statement made before the media yesterday.
Holding a press conference, Shri Tripathy said, “Patnaik yesterday told the media that I do not belong to the party. But the reality is that my suspension was revoked by the BJD supremo himself in 2017 and I had even campaigned for the party during 2019 and 2024 elections.”
“I was a humble member of the party till last evening. During the 2019 elections, the BJD chief, who was then the CM, was present at the meeting which I had addressed. I have also attended party programmes in Cuttack district after Covid pandemic,” he said.
While giving a clean chit to his close aide VK Pandian, the BJD president yesterday had stated Tripathy was expelled from the party some years ago.
“To evade the Waqf Bill voting controversy in the BJD, how far it is acceptable for a leader like Naveen’s stature to say that Prabhat Tripathy is not in the BJD,” he added.
“The then No. 2 in the BJD (referring to Pandian) had hailed my contribution to the party. If this person has withdrawn from active politics and not involved in any party activities for the past 10 months, then why is the needle of suspicion over the split voting pointing towards him,” he asked.
Shri Tripathy, who did not contest the polls in 2019 and 2024 and his son Devi Ranjan Tripathy replaced him as the BJD MLA from Banki assembly segment, came to the limelight when he joined the bandwagon in the Waqf voting issue where BJD MPs voted both for and against the Bill.
He said Shri Patnaik did not speak on the main Waqf Bill voting issue which has created ripples across the party and the State over BJD’s change of stand at the last moment. Like some other leaders, Tripathy too had indicated that Pandian was the person who diluted the BJD stand at the last moment of the voting.
The former MLA also held the former bureaucrat responsible for the BJD’s defeat in the 2024 election.