BHUBANESWAR: Acute factionalism has delayed the organisational restructuring of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) at the district level despite efforts of the leadership to reach a consensus on filling up vacancies. Out of the 34 organisational districts of the party, the post of president is lying vacant in seven. Vacancies in two western Odisha districts, Jharsuguda and Bargarh, had arisen because of the death of former speaker Kishore Kumar Mohanty and former minister Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha.
In fact, the office of the Bargarh district BJD has been vacant for more than three years because of Bariha’s illness and death while that of Jharsuguda for nearly two and a half years after the death of Mohanty. Both posts are yet to be filled.
The party has won two by-polls, from Padampur and Jharsuguda, without district presidents. Sources said factions led by senior leaders of western Odisha, Naba Kishore Das and Sushant Singh had stalled the appointment of presidents to the two districts. After the death of Das, the leadership has started attempts to arrive at a consensus for filling up the two posts.
Sources said the general secretary (organisation) of BJD Pranab Prakash Das had visited the area recently and held closed-door meetings with senior leaders in this regard. Besides the two districts, presidents of five others have resigned recently.
Those include Rabindra Jena from Balasore, Minister for Steel and Mines Prafulla Mallick from Dhenkanal, Minister for Labour and Employees State Insurance Sarada Nayak from Rourkela, Ishwar Panigrahi from Koraput and government chief whip Prashant Muduli from Jagatsinghpur.
Sources in BJD maintained three of them Mallick, Nayak and Muduli were asked to resign as part of the party’s one man, one post principle. Jena had resigned after his appointment as the Khurda district observer. Panigrahi was changed to bring in a new face to achieve BJD’s aim to further expand its base in Koraput district.
Meanwhile, the party has decided to continue with Saroj Kumar Kampa as the president of the Sonepur district committee office-bearers which was announced on Friday.