Party-hopping continues rampant in the coastal state of Odisha as BJP vice-prez leaves the saffron party and joins the BJD hours later
Lekhasri Samantsinghar, the well-known face of the BJP and vice president of the Odisha unit, announced her resignation from the party’s main membership on Sunday, in the latest political whirlwind.
Samantsighar joined the BJD hours after leaving the party, following the current pattern of political figures moving parties. There was conjecture that the regional party could nominate her from the Balasore parliamentary seat.
Samantsighar was well known for taking aim at the Naveen Patnaik administration and labelling it as corrupt, a move that often made news. She was running for a party ticket in the Lok Sabha or the Assembly. Samantsighar’s decision to break ties with the BJP after ten years was attributed solely to the party’s refusal to provide him a ticket.
“I feel like there’s nothing more I can do here, and my desire to help the Odisha people is being hindered. Samantsinghar said under the “X” handle, “I hereby resign from the primary membership of the BJP with immediate effect.”
On May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1, Odisha will hold simultaneous elections for the 147 Assembly and 21 Lok Sabha seats.
It’s interesting to note that at least 30% of the BJD candidates running for Lok Sabha seats are recent party defectors. Thus far, the party has declared candidates for twenty of the twenty-one Lok Sabha seats.
If the current political climate ahead of the concurrent elections in the coastal state of Odisha is any indication, the metaphor of “musical chairs,” which refers to party flipping and changing political allegiance in order to buck the system, has seemingly taken on almost ridiculous dimensions in the Odisha electoral politics arena. Every significant player is afflicted with it.
In an attempt to preserve its dominance in elections, the BJD, which has been securely in power since 2000, has recruited party defectors in as many as seven Lok Sabha seats: Bhubaneswar, Kendrapara, Berhampur, Nabarangpur, Balangir, Bargarh, and Keonjhar. BJD has so far nominated candidates for 20 of the 21 LS seats.
Bhatruhari Mahatab, Anubhav Mohanty, Sidhant Mohapatra, Arka Keshari Deo, Akash Das Nayak, Sanjeeb Kumar Sahoo, Arabinda Dhali, Priyadarshi Mishra, Purna Chandra Sethi, Trinath Gamang, Rajendra Das, Ramesh Chandra Sai, Premanand Nayak, Tajeswar Parida, Raghuram Machha, and Dushmsmta Swain are among the well-known BJD leaders who quit from the party’s primary membership ahead of the polls.
In a same vein, the BJP has lost Ramakanta Bhoi, Raghunath Mohanty, Sukanta Mohanty, Prakash Behera, and Madhab Dhada.
With Pradeep Majhi, Anshuman Mohanty, Manmath Routray, Surendra Singh Bhoi, Dhanurjaya Sidu, K Surya Rao, Rohit Tirkey, and Adhiraj Panigrahi leaving the party, the Congress is also being negatively impacted by the party hopping problem.
The majority of these party-hoppers have inadvertently been given tickets to run for the Assembly or the Lok Sabha.
In Odisha, political party switching has become the norm rather than an exception. The pre-election scenario has become dramatic thanks to electoral musical chairs. A number of voters said, “It has made a mockery of democracy.”
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won the most seats (12) in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, ahead of the BJP (8) and the Congress (1).
The BJD secured 113 out of 147 seats in the most recent assembly election, which took place in 2019 concurrently with the general election. With 23 seats, the BJP was far behind with nine, while the Congress was third with nine. One seat was secured by the CPM, while an Independent secured the other.
