Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal on Sunday successfully wooed two senior leaders from the rival Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to its side, eventually exhibiting that the exodus of prominent faces is not limited to his party only.
Senior Congress leader and former minister Ganeswar Behera and BJP state Vice President Lekashree Samantasinghar joined the BJD here at the party’s state headquarters.
Behera had represented the Pattamundai (SC) constituency in Odisha Legislative Assembly twice —in 1985 and 1995 — and held the position of minister of the state for higher education, food supplies, consumer affairs, public grievances, and pensions in the Janaki Ballav Patnaik government.
Earlier on April 2, Behera had resigned from the primary membership of the Congress party.
In 2000 and 2004, he lost respectively to Tapas Kumar Das and Kishore Tarai of BJD. After the delimitation exercise, Pattamundai assembly constituency was merged with Kendrapara. In 2009, 2014 and 2019, he unsuccessfully contested from this seat and lost to the BJD candidates.
In the 2019 polls, Shashi Bhusan Behera of BJD had won the seat by defeating Ganeswar Behera by a margin of 6,320 votes.
A few days ago, a few other top Congress leaders like Chiranjib Biswal, Surendra Singh Bhoi, sitting MLA Adhiraj Panigrahi, ex-MLAs K Surya Rao and Ansuman Mohanty, had joined the BJD.
Lekhashree Samantasinghar was eyeing to contest from Kandhamal parliamentary constituency seat on a BJP ticket. Sources said she felt aggrieved when the party fielded Sukanta Panigrahi from that seat. In 2019, the firebrand from saffron party also contemplated to fight from Balasore Lok Sabha seat. However, the party chose Pratap Sarangi over her.
