Bhubaneswar: As was expected, former Balasore MP Rabindra Kumar Jena joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) here on Wednesday, a day after resigning from quitting Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
Odisha BJP president Manmohan Samal and other senior leaders were at the saffron party’s state headquarters in Bhubaneswar to welcome Jena along with his supporters into the BJP fold.
The former MP mentioned “personal reasons and circumstances” as the reasons behind his decision in his resignation letter to BJD president and former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Jena’s decision to switch parties comes days ahead of Rajya Sabha elections. Polling will be held on March 16 to fill 37 Rajya Sabha seats in 10 states – 7 in Maharashtra, 6 in Tamil Nadu, 5 each in Bihar and West Bengal, 4 in Odisha, 3 in Assam, 2 each in Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Haryana, and 1 seat in Himachal Pradesh.
Jena’s move could complicate BJD’s calculations in the Odisha Assembly, where party arithmetic is crucial for the Upper House polls. His wife, sitting BJD MLA Subasini Jena from Basta constituency in Balasore district, earlier indicated that she may not adhere to party directives in the voting for Rajya Sabha candidates.
Rabindra Jena had won the Balasore Lok Sabha seat on a BJD ticket in the 2014 general election. He, however, lost to BJP’s Pratap Sarangi five years later.
Jena was denied a BJD ticket in the last Lok Sabha polls, held in 2024, with Naveen-helmed party picking former BJP member Lekhashree Samantasinghar as its candidate from Balasore. Sarangi retained the seat, defeating Lekhashree by a margin of over 1.47 lakh votes.
