Pyari’s Daughter Joins BJD

Bhubaneswar: It was a homecoming of sorts for Sikta Pati when she joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) at Naveen Niwas here on Saturday in the presence of party president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

She is the elder daughter of late bureaucrat-turned-politician Pyarimohan Mohapatra, Naveen’s chief strategist who turned against him.

After joining the ruling party, Sikta said that she was particularly impressed with developmental agenda, especially those concerning women and children, of the BJD government.

Welcoming Sikta into the BJD, Naveen said her induction will strength the party.

An MA in Economics, she also holds an MBA degree. After Pyari’s demise on 19 March 2017, she had joined the OJM, the party founded by her father, and became its Secretary-General.

Notably, Pyari was the chief advisor of Naveen, a political greenhorn then, on BJD affairs from 2000 to 2012. The confidant turned ‘backstabber’ in 2012 when he tried to engineer a coup in the party while Naveen was on his first overseas trip to London after becoming the Chief Minister. He was soon eased out of the party. Pyari then founded Odisha Jana Morcha, but could make little impact in 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.