Biju
Janata Dal(BJD), the principal opposition party in the eastern India state of
Odisha, appears to be passing through a tough time. Recently, one of its
members in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, Debashis
Samantary, resigned from the party. He also relinquished his parliament
membership.
The development has become a major
embarrassment for the regional outfit because the senior party leader is the
third Rajya Sabha member to quit the party since the BJD’s humiliating defeat
in the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, the BJP during the state
assembly elections held two years back in 2024.
Samantaray
has joined the BJP rubbing salt in the BJD’ wounds. Two other Rajya Sabha
member who had previously resigned from the party had also done the same.
Elections
were also held for Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament, in
1924. In that elections too, the BJD’s performance was disastrous. It had lost
all the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the eastern Indian state which it had ruled for
24 long years. However, the party had a few Rajya Sabha MPs of which three have
already quit the regional outfit inflicting a major blow to its image.
Apart from
rest of the Rajya Sabha MPs, the activities of party members in the state
legislative assembly are now being keenly watched by political observers and
analysts who feel that if some of the state legislators decided to follow the
footsteps of Rajya Sabha members to quit the party then there will definitely
be a question mark on the survival of the regional outfit.
The latest
developments in the BJD has brought to the fore the fact that the party
leadership, the party president Naveen Patnaik to be precise, have so far not
been able to take correct measures to rebuild the party after its dismal
performance in the last Lok Sabha and state assembly elections. ‘’’Two years is
a long enough period for any political party to repair its house through
corrective measures. But the BJD leadership seems to have completely failed on
that front. Therefore, more trouble appears to be on the cards for the former
ruling party’’, said a senior political analysts based in Bhubaneswar, the
Odisha capital.
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