Bhubaneswar: Sitting MLA of Telkoi constituency Premananda Nayak, who resigned from BJD recently, has eventually joined the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). Besides, former Dhamnagar MLA Rajendra Das also joined the saffron party.
In a major setback to the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), former minister and sitting MLA from Telkoi constituency Premananda Nayak resigned from primary membership of the party.
Nayak won the assembly election in 2009 and 2019 on a BJD ticket. During Naveen Patnaik’s 5th term, he was picked as Skill Development and Technical Education Minister.
Meanwhile, Das, popularly known as Raju Das, won as an MLA from Dhamnagar constituency in Bhadrak district on a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) ticket in 2009. The BJD denied him a ticket in 2014 polls. The regional party again gave him the party ticket in 2019, but he lost.
During the 2022 Dhamnagar by-poll, BJD again denied Das a party ticket, following which he filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate and lost. Later, Das was expelled from the BJD for his alleged anti-party activities.