Baijayant Panda joins BJP, blasts BJD

BHUBANESWAR: Industrialist-politician Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda joined the BJP — as was widely expected ever since he quit the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD nine months ago in May last year — in New Delhi on Monday.
Speaking to reporters after donning the saffron robe, Baijayant explained how it was a natural choice for him to join the BJP. “There was a probability of my joining the BJP 22 years ago (when BJD was formed with BJP help in 1997).Unfortunately, it took 22 years to come here,” he said.
BJP sources said Baijayant is likely to be fielded from Kendrapada Lok Sabha seat from where he was elected on BJD tickets in 2009 and 2014.
Baijayant, who has been effusive in his praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past, even when he was with the BJD, said “It’s no secret that I have admired Prime Minister Modi’s leadership and the direction in which he is taking the country.”
Blasting his former party (BJD), of which he used to be the most prominent face in Delhi for past two decades, the four-time former MP said, “We have a situation in Odisha where governance has very sharply deteriorated over the years.”
In initial years from 2000 to 2009 when BJD had an alliance with the BJP, the governance in Odisha had certain standards, he added.
Baijayant said because of continued rule of one party, corruption and crime against women have gone up. Pregnant women have to be carried to hospitals on shoulders. “This needs changing and only BJP is capable of doing that,” he said.
Baijayant was welcomed by BJP’s state top brass, Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Jual Oram, party’s Odisha in-charge Arun Singh, state unit president Basanta Panda and legislature party leader KV Singhdeo at BJP headquarters. “Baijayant babu’s joining will add to party’s strength,” Dharmendra said.
The 55 year-old politician’s relation with BJD, the party he helped found, had become visibly “strained” after the 2017 panchayat elections in state when he called for “introspection” for party’s fall in seats when the BJP had remarkably improved its performance. Baijayant had questioned “bureaucratic highhandedness” in BJD and had questioned the role of Naveen’s trusted IAS officer VK Pandian in subsequent months. He was suspended from the Naveen Patnaik-led regional party in January last year for anti-party activities.
He had resigned from the BJD in an “emotional” moment after Naveen and BJD leaders did not pay respect to his father Bansidhar Panda who died on May 22. Bansidhar, who founded IMFA Group, is revered as a key architect of industrialization in Odisha. Baijayant had then said he was “heart-broken” when his erstwhile BJD colleagues told him that they had been restrained from coming by to pay their last respects to the departed soul. Days later, he resigned from Lok Sabha in June.
BJP was a natural choice for the high-profile politician, who started his political career on anti-Congress plank. Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Niranjan Patnaik said Baijayant’s move would have no impact on Congress. BJD leader Arun Sahoo termed it an insignificant development.