Nilagiri MLA Sukanta Nayak Deserts BJP, Likely To Return To BJD

Bhubaneswar: Nilagiri MLA Sukanta Kumar Nayak resigned from primary membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today. He has sent his resignation letter to BJP state president Manmohan Samal. In 2019, he left BJD and joined BJP.

After quitting the BJP, Nayak has maintained silence about which party he will join. However, speculations are rife that Nayak would again return to the BJD.

Nayak followed Biju Babu’s ideals from his student life and engaged himself in social service. From 1992 to 1994, he was elected as a Samiti member in his Panchayat. Later, in 1994, he joined the Irrigation Department of the Odisha Government as an engineer. In 2014, while he was an assistant executive officer of the irrigation department, he resigned from the government job and took up public service.

In 2014, Sukant became a candidate from BJD in the Nilagiri constituency and showed his popularity by defeating his nearest rival, Smt Sushma Biswal of BJP, by 13,700 votes.

In the election of 2019, he left the BJD and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party due to a fallout with the district president. Sukanta Kumar Nayak secured 69,517 votes and defeated Satya Khatua who got 67,517 votes.