Citing ‘humiliation’, Jay Panda quits BJD

Jay’s 87-year-old father Bansidhar Panda, who passed away on May 22 in Bhubaneswar, was a well-known industrialist from Odisha and had close ties with Naveen’s father and former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik.

Kendrapara MP Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda. (Express photo/Praveen Khanna)

Kendrapara MP Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda, who had been suspended from the primary membership of the BJD in January this year, quit the party on Monday.

In a three-page letter to party president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Panda stated that he “dissociates” himself from the party. “I have decided to quit the kind of politics into which our BJD has descended,” he has written. He has also written that Patnaik not paying respect in person upon his father’s death was “the last straw” among “many humiliations over the past four years”.

Jay’s 87-year-old father Bansidhar Panda, who passed away on May 22 in Bhubaneswar, was a well-known industrialist from Odisha and had close ties with Naveen’s father and former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik.

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Reminding the Chief Minister that he was one of the pallbearers during Biju Patnaik’s funeral, Jay’s letter claimed that several BJD leaders conveyed to him privately that they were prevented from paying their respects to Bansidhar Panda. The BJD has officially stated that it will respond to Panda after the twelfth day rites.

“It is not clear if the resignation means anything when he was already suspended from the party’s primary membership (in January),” said a senior BJD leader. “Biju Patnaik’s constituency (Kendrapara) was basically gifted to him. He cannot best Naveen and the BJD’s election machinery in Kendrapara”.

According to some BJD leaders, Panda’s alleged “sabotage” of the BJD’s prospects in the panchayati elections in Kendrapara last year, which helped the BJP, put him on a collision course with the chief minister.

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