Odisha BJD Leader Prasanna Patasani Leaves For Delhi On ‘BJP Call’

Bhubaneswar: While BJD is trying to keep its flock together after the poll debacle, five-time Bhubaneswar MP Prasanna Kumar Patasani left for Delhi on Friday amid speculation that he might join the BJP.

According to sources, a senior BJP leader and new-elected MP from Odisha has invited him to the national capital. He took the 7.30 am flight to Delhi. However, it is still not clear as to what task the saffron party would assign him.

Though Patasani was keen to contest from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat again this election, the BJD fielded newbie Manmath Routray, son of veteran leader Suresh Kumar Routray, ignoring him. The former MP had met the party leadership at Naveen Niwas following the announcement. There was also an indication that he will be fielded from the Chilika Assembly segment with the sitting MLA Prashant Jagdev having been expelled from the party. However, his candidature met with stiff opposition from local leaders of Chilika.

Patasani had won the Bhubaneswar MP seat for five consecutive terms from 1998 to 2014.

After being denied ticket in 2019, Patasani had also claimed that the leadership had assured a Rajya Sabha berth for him. Though there were several opportunities before the party to nominate him to the upper house of Parliament, it never happened.

His son-in-law, Priyadarshi Mishra, has already switched sides to BJP and also contested the elections from Bhubaneswar-North.

Murmurs of discontent were heard even as BJD president Naveen Patnaik reviewed the party’s poll debacle for the second consecutive day on Thursday. Though organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das said that finding the reasons behind the defeat and putting the blame on any leader was the internal affair of the party, former finance minister Sashi Bhusan Behera, who was denied ticket in this election, attributed it to sidelining of senior leaders in campaign activities during the polls, which he said helped the BJP to successfully push the ‘Odia Asmita’ issue.

Former minister Prafulla Samal, on the other hand, the review meeting by Naveen has belied media reports that he cannot do anything without V K Pandian. “Now you can see, he can do everything without Pandian,” said Behera, who lost the election from Bhadrak Assembly seat.

The poll results are being seen as a mandate against key strategist Pandian and his conspicuous absence ever since the declaration of results on Tuesday had become the talking point till he spotted in Delhi on Thursday. The BJD later clarified that he was in the national capital on the direction of the party president for some work assigned by him.