SAMBALPUR: The cracks in Sambalpur BJD got exposed when district BJD president Pramod Rath wrote to the party bosses protesting the press meet organised by BJD Deputy Chief Whip and Rairakhol MLA Rohit Pujari to welcome the Congress leaders and workers, who joined the ruling party on Monday.
Nearly 200 Congress workers of Jujumura, led by former Zilla Parishad member Chaittaranjan Pradhan, joined the BJD reposing their confidence on Pujari. With the panchayat elections round the corner, Pujari took the opportunity to put up a show of strength and this apparently did not go down well with Pujari’s bete noire and Sambalpur BJD MLA Raseswari Panigrahi. Soon, the district BJD president and Raseswari’s protege Rath issued a statement accusing Pujari of indiscipline and wrote a letter to the higher-ups.
The deep-rooted factionalism in the district BJD with Panigrahi, Rath and Rengali MLA Ramesh Patua on the one side and the rest on the other, is likely to put the ruling party in a spot in the district.
Pujari seems to have irked Rath by not inviting his supporters to attend the meet. Citing numerous instances when Rath failed to take the party leaders along, observers said he has no right to question Pujari who had built up the BJD organisation in the district.
The press meet was also attended by senior BJD leaders of the district, including Bijay Mohanty, Siddharta Das, district Mahila BJD president Usha Pradhan and secretary, State Yuva BJD, Sanjit Mohanty. The leaders called upon the new entrants to work unitedly and ensure the party’s win in the three-tier panchayat election.