Bhubaneswar: Former Minister and Governing BJD MLA Simulia Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi resigned from the primary membership of the ruling party on Wednesday.
Shri Panigrahi, a two time MLA, has written a letter to BJD President and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik about his resignation from the primary membership of the party.
The sitting MLA, who held the position of Minister of State for Odia Language Literature, Culture, and Tourism from 2019 to 2022 in the Naveen Patnaik’s Cabinet, was denied a party ticket to contest the 2024 elections. In his place, the BJD has fielded Subhasini Sahu.
The Simulia Assembly seat is going to polls in the last phase of the election on June 1.
Shri Panigrahi, in a video message, thanked the Chief Minister for giving him the opportunity to serve the people of Simulia for one decade and said he would continue to work for the people of his constituency in the future also.
The ruling BJD had this time denied party tickets to 36 sitting MLAs and expelled four sitting MLAs for indulging in anti-party activities.
At least nine BJD sitting MLAs who were denied party tickets have quit the party and joined the BJP. Similarly, two of the four expelled BJD MLAs—Pradeep Panigrahi from the Gopalpur Assembly seat and Prashant Jagadev from the Chilika Assembly seat, have joined the BJP and are contesting the election.
While Pradeep Panigrahi has been fielded from the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat, polling of which has already been over, Jagdev is contesting the Khurda Assembly seat, polling of which will be held on May 25.
Meanwhile, four MLAs who had resigned from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) were issued show cause notices to appear before Odisha Assembly Speaker Pramila Mallik on May 27 to reply as to why they would not be disqualified from their Assembly membership.
They are Nimapara MLA Samir Ranjan Dash, Hindol MLA Simarani Nayak, Athamallik MLA Ramesh Sai and Soro MLA Parshuram Dhada.
All the four MLAs have resigned from BJD after the party denied tickets to them in the ensuing election and joined opposition BJP. Out of the four MLAs, the BJP has given tickets to Simarani and Parshuram in this poll from their respective assembly constituencies.
The show cause notice was issued after Government Chief Whip Prasanta Muduli filed a petition on Monday before the Odisha Assembly Speaker seeking disqualification of these four legislators under the anti-defection laws.
The Speaker had accepted the petition and directed the Odisha Legislative Assembly Secretary to issue show-cause notices to these MLAs.
Earlier, the Odisha assembly had disqualified two BJD MLAs—Arabinda Dhali (Jayadev) and Premananda Nayak (Telkoi) following the government chief whip moved a petition for their disqualification as they left the BJD. These two MLAs are also now in the BJP and contesting in this election