Bhubaneswar: Ahead of twin polls to Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, EX-Minister Surendra Singh Bhoi joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) after quitting the Congress party.
Shri Bhoi along with his supporters formally joined the BJD in the presence of the party’s senior leaders including Rajya Sabha member Sasmit Patra, and Minister Tukuni Sahu here at Sankha Bhawan.
The former Titlagarh MLA resigned from the Congress on Thursday. He ended his association with Congress of more than three decades citing ‘personal’ reasons. Speculations are rife that Bhoi may contest for the Bolangir MP seat in the upcoming polls.
And sitting MLA from Nilagiri Sukanta Kumar Nayak and ex-MLA Prakash Behera resigned from the BJP. Both the leaders are likely to join the ruling BJD.
Shri Nayak and Shri Behera have submitted their resignation letters to State BJP President Manmohan Samal.
“I do hereby tender my resignation today from the primary membership of BJP,” Shri Nayak said in his resignation letter.
Sukanta Nayak was there in BJD and elected to the State Assembly in 2014 from BJD ticket. As the BJD denied him a ticket in 2019, he joined the BJP and was elected to the Assembly from the same seat on the BJP ticket.
Similarly, Shri Behera in his letter said, “I have always tried to do justice to my position and the team has tried to achieve milestones. But I could not give satisfactory results.”
Shri Behera had won the Salepur in 2014 on Congress ticket. He joined the BJP ahead of 2019 elections and contested again from the same constituency but lost to BJD’s Prashant Behera.