Western Odisha BJP leader Subhash Chauhan joins BJD

BHUBANESWAR: Miffed with being denied the Bargarh Lok Sabha ticket, BJP leader and former national convenor of the Bajrang Dal, Subhash Chauhan, joined the Biju Janata Dal on Wednesday.
The long-time RSS pracharak from Western Odisha was hoping to contest for the Lok Sabha where he had polled 3.72 lakh votes in 2014 – the highest for a BJP candidate. He’d lost that year but was confident of winning this time.

He’s now been appointed observer for Naveen Patnaik’s BJD for three constituencies - Kalahandi, Bolangir and Bargarh -- and Chauhan told ET he would work towards the BJD’s victory in these areas. Referring to Naveen Patnaik as “Yudhishtira”, and blaming Dharmendra Pradhan for his situation, Chauhan told the media he was fighting “Arjun’s battle”.

The gains that the BJP managed during the three-tiered panchayat polls in 2017 were largely from Western Odisha, its traditional stronghold from where the party primarily contested from during 2000-2009 when it was an alliance partner of Patnaik’s BJD.

In 2014 the party won only one of Odisha’s 21 LS seats and 10 of the state’s 147 assembly seats. BJD boss, and the party’s chief vote-catcher is leading the charge here too: in a first the four-time CM is contesting from a second seat, of Bijepur, in western Odisha.

Chauhan, who had lead the Bajrang Dal during the Kandhamal riots of 2008 in Odisha , said he didn’t see any ideological problem in his joining the BJD. “I believe in true secularism, Naveen Patnaik is truly secular and not pseudo secular,” he told ET.