Suspended Odisha Lok Sabha MP Baijayant Jay Panda, on Monday, 28 May, announced his exit from the Biju Janata Dal in a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik saying, “It's with deep anguish, hurt and sorrow that I have decided to quit the politics into which our BJD has descended.”
He expressed disappointment over the absence of party members at his father’s funeral. In the letter, he wrote, “Although things have been going from bad to worse for the past four years, it has plumbed the absolute depths of inhumanity when neither you nor anyone from the BJD turned up to pay their last respects to my father Dr Bansidhar Panda, who as everyone knows was a very close friend, supporter and associate of Biju uncle for many decades.”
I was heartbroken when several BJD colleagues conveyed that they had been restrained from coming by to pay their last respects to the departed soul. That the BJD does not want me anymore and in fact wants me out, is now irrefutably clear.Baijayant Jay Panda wrote in his letter.
He also wrote, in his letter, that he'll formally convey his decision to the Lok Sabha Speaker, reported ANI.
Panda, the MP from Kendrapara and a known critic of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, was suspended from the BJD for allegedly "weakening" the party in January this year, according to PTI.
On 3 May, Panda found himself in trouble when a sub-divisional judicial magistrate's court in the Kendrapada district of the state directed the police to file a criminal case against him on charges of submitting a "false" affidavit for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, reported The Times of India.
(With inputs from The Times of India, ANI and PTI)
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