BHUBANESWAR : Even as the BJD leaders asserted that joining of chairman of 5T and Nabin Odisha Karthik Pandian will further strengthen the ruling party in the state, the Opposition BJP and Congress maintained it will have no impact on politics of Odisha.
State president of BJP Manmohan Samal said that it will have no impact on the coming general elections. “It is good he will now do politics openly,” he said. “All can do politics in a democracy. His joining politics is in no way challenging for us. We have seen many such joinings. It will have no impact,” he added.
BJP MP from Bhubaneswar Aparajita Sarangi welcomed Pandian joining politics. “Everybody is welcome to do politics. Everybody has a right. I do not want to give any comments,” she said. But the BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda was very critical about Pandian’s entry to BJD. He alleged that the move is a setback for pride of Odia people.
Congress also maintained that Pandian’s joining will have no impact on the politics of Odisha. OPCC president Sarat Pattanayak said there is nothing new in his joining BJD. “He was running the BJD and now he has formally joined it. There is no change. What he was doing behind the scene will be in the open now,” he said.
His party colleague and campaign committee chairman Bijay Patnaik also said that everybody knew that he will join BJD. But everything will depend on how far Naveen Patnaik will depend on him, he said and added that the chief minister is very unpredictable. “We will have to see what role he is given in BJD. Whether all the senior BJD leaders accept him. We will have to wait and watch,” he added.