JMM Leader Laxman Tudu, 3 BJD Leaders Join BJP

Bhubaneswar: With the elections less than a month away, exodus of dissident politicians continued on Wednesday with a senior leader of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and three BJD leaders joining the BJP.

Former Mayurbhanj MP Laxman Tudu had joined the JMM in October last year, alleging that the BJD was ignoring senior leaders and actual party workers were side-lined and treated as foreigners.

However, JMM denied his a ticket from Mayurbhanj and instead fielded JMM supremo Sibu Soren’s daughter Anjali as the MP candidate from the seat, following which, he left the party and joined the BJP at its office here.

This apart, Debaraj Mohanty, the two-time BJD MLA of Aska, also resigned and joined the saffron party with his supporters. Though Mohanty had won the Assembly polls twice from Aska in 2009 and 2014, the party leadership denied him the ticket this time and instead made Manjula Swain its official candidate.

Another well-known BJD leader of Sundargarh, Kusum Tete, also joined the saffron party with her supporters.

She had been lobbying for a ticket to contest the Sundargarh Assembly seat but was ignored by the party leadership who instead fielded Jogesh Singh, the former Congress MLA of Sundargarh and recent entrant to the party. The party leadership tried to placate Tete by appointing her as the chairperson of the Special Development Council (SDC) of the district, but in vain as she resigned from the post.

Apart from Tete, sitting BJD MLA of Nilagiri, Sukant Nayak, also joined the BJP. He had resigned from the regional party after Sushama Biswal was picked as candidate for Nilagiri. Sushama, who had contested from Nilagiri Assembly as a BJP candidate, had lost to Nayak in 2014 elections.

Here is the list of dissidents who joined the BJP at a ‘mishran parba’ this evening.

K Narayan Rao, former MLA, Paralekhmundi
Basant Kumar Bisoi, former MLA Candidate, Soroda
Niranjan Pradhan, former Polosara MLA
Purna Chandra Nayak, Daspalla MLA
Kasinath Mallik, former Daspalla MLA
Nilamani Bisoi, MLA and block chairman, Soroda

Besides, 30 sarpanchs, 32 samiti sabhyas, three Zilla Parishad members and two block
chairman also resigned from the BJD and joined the saffron party.