BHUBANESWAR: Amid growing internal unrest in the BJD following the Waqf Bill voting, senior leader and Athagarh MLA Ranendra Pratap Swain has shot off a letter to party president Naveen Patnaik stating the issue has dented the secular credentials and founding principles of the party.
“The Waqf Bill controversy has raised serious questions on BJD’s stand on secularism. This is a moment to reclaim the party’s ideological legacy and reassert its identity rooted in social justice with secularism and regional dignity as its pillars,” Swain said in the letter.
Stating that Biju Babu’s politics was rooted in social justice with secularism and regional pride as its natural extensions, Swain said, “Let us not let a few individuals hijack the party, distort the social fabric and deepen regional imbalance.”
The senior leader said the party’s founding ideals in addressing the needs of marginalised communities like SCs, STs, OBCs, minorities and women have also been eroded. “People of Odisha are looking up to us for principled leadership. I am confident that under your guidance, the Biju Janata Dal can rise to the occasion and chart a bold path forward,” he stated in his letter.
Meanwhile, targeting his party colleague in the Rajya Sabha, Sulata Deo, over her social media post on the Waqf Bill, MP Debashish Samantaray said, “After the statement of the party chief, we are maintaining silence. But some people are indulging in indiscipline.”
Calling her a junior member in the party, Samantaray said they have drawn the attention of party president to such acts of ‘indiscipline’.
This came a couple of days after Deo in a social media post targeted BJD MP Munna (Muzibulla) Khan and Samantaray. She claimed that the BJD supremo had categorically asked the MPs, including Munna Khan and Debashish Samantaray, on April 7 to vote as per their conscience on Waqf Bill in the Rajya Sabha.
Meanwhile, more than 300 BJD workers led by chairman of the Gudari panchayat samiti in Ganjam district Lakshmi Sabar on Monday joined Congress at the party headquarters here. Welcoming them, president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee Bhakta Charan Das said they will help strengthen the party at the grassroots level in Ganjam district which was a stronghold of the regional outfit.
He also said many leaders of the rival political parties will join the Congress soon.