Kalinga TV News Network
Bargarh: It’s official! Former Bijepur MLA Ashok Panigrahy, who had written a hard hitting letter to BJD President Naveen Patnaik recently, has confirmed that he is joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on October 2.
The formal induction will take place in Barpali in the presence of Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram. Panigrahy was upset at being ignored in favour of late Congress MLA Subal Sahu’s wife Rita Sahu, who recently joined BJD and was given the ticket to contest the bypoll in Bijepur.
In 2014 assembly polls, Ashok Panigrahy contested as an Independent after being denied a ticket by BJD. He polled 18,232 votes (11% of the total votes polled). The official BJP candidate had secured 30,001 votes.
BJD’s official candidate Prasanna Acharya, had lost the battle to late Subal Sahu by a narrow margin of 458 votes. Congress polled 53,290 votes, while BJD secured 52,832 votes. Panigrahy was suspended from the party, but it was revoked later.
The battle would be interesting in Bijepur, as both BJD and BJP would try to woo the floating Congress votes, which could go either way.
Ms Kalinga