Mamata Mohanta Quits BJD, Likely to Join BJP

BJD leader Mamata Mohanta quit her party on Wednesday, hours after she resigned as a Rajya Sabha MP amid indications that she might join the BJP.

In her resignation letter to BJD president Naveen Patnaik, Mohanta said she felt that there was no requirement of the service of her and her community in the party.

“I sincerely express my gratitude to your goodself for giving me an opportunity to serve the people of Mayurbhanj and also to take the cause of Odisha at the national level,” she said, adding that she was resigning from the primary membership of the BJD.

Earlier in the day, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said he received the letter of Mohanta’s resignation as an MP.

“She has resigned her seat by writing to the chairman under her hand and handed personally to me. The same I find to be constitutionally in order. I have accepted the resignation of Shrimati Mamata Mohanta, member representing the state of Odisha, with immediate effect,” Dhankhar said.

With Mohanta’s resignation, the BJD’s strength in Rajya Sabha dropped to eight. It does not have any MP in the Lok Sabha.

Sources in the BJP said she is likely to join the party and might get re-elected to the seat that she was vacating with the help of the party’s increased strength in the assembly.

Without naming the BJP, opposition chief whip in the state assembly Pramila Mallik said Mohanta’s resignation was part of a ”conspiracy hatched by a national party”.

“A national party hatched the conspiracy to raise its own strength in Rajya Sabha. Mamata Mohanta was sent to Rajya Sabha by Naveen Patnaik to give representation to Mayurbhanj and the Mohanta community. She has betrayed the people of her community, the state and Mayurbhanj,” Mallik told reporters.

She rejected Mohanta’s allegations of being sidelined in the party.

“Mohanta should remember what she did during the elections,” Mallik said.

At present, the BJP has 78 members in the assembly while the opposition BJD has 51 seats. Fourteen seats are held by the Congress, three by Independents and one by CPI(M).

There are 10 Rajya Seats in the state, BJD now has eight of them, the BJP one.

Even as sources in BJP claimed that Mohanta is likely to be renominated to the seat she was vacating, there were indications that the party’s state president Manmohan Saamal, and senior leaders Dilp Ray and Samir Dash were also under consideration.

All of them lost the recently concluded assembly polls but played key roles in bringing the BJP to power in the state.