Bhubaneswar: Former Minister Raghunath Mohanty and Ex-MLA Jiban Pradip Das joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) at Naveen Niwas in Odisha capital on Wednesday.
Senior party leaders Pranab Prakash Das, Debi Prasad Mishra and Pratap Jena were present.
There has been speculation about Mohanty returning to BJD fold after he resigned from BJP in April 2024. He had joined the saffron party ahead of the Assembly election in 2019, upset with the Conch party’s decision not to give him a ticket from Basta assembly constituency, from where he had been elected to the state assembly five times in a row since 1990. He was then serving as vice president of BJD.
Mohanty was Panchyati Raj and Drinking Water and Law Minister in the Naveen Patnaik government from 2006 to 2013. He was removed from the BJD in 2014 following his arrest in a dowry case slapped by his daughter-in-law Barsa Sony Choudhury. Though he was readmitted to the party in 2018,
Mohanty resigned from it ahead of the 2019 polls, when he unsuccessfully contested from the seat on a BJP ticket..
Mohanty was first elected to the state assembly from Basta seat in 1990 on a Janata Dal ticket. He retained the seat in 1995, 2000, 2004 and 2009 elections.
On the other hand, Das resigned from primary membership of BJP on March 13, just two days after switching sides from BJD, while questioning induction of Rabindra Jena, a chit fund accused, into the party.
Dash was elected from Balasore Sadar Assembly seat on a BJP ticket in 2000. Later on he joined the ruling BJD and won the seat twice in 2009 and 2014 Assembly elections. He, however, lost the 2019 Assembly election to BJP’s Madan Mohan Dutta. The three-time MLA from Balasore was suspended from BJD in 2020 for alleged anti-party activities following which he resigned from the primary membership of the party. He had then allegedly remained absent from campaigning for the November 3 bypoll after being denied a party ticket.
These joining of former leaders assume significance against the recent setback for BJD in the March 16 Rajya Sabha election in which eight party MLAs cross-voted. Among them was Balasore MLA Subasini Jena. She is the wife of former BJD MP from Balasore Rabindra Kumar Jena, who joined the BJP, a day after quitting the regional outfit.