As if realising it so late, senior leader Bijay Mohapatra on Tuesday regretted that he is “unwanted” in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) State unit. And “the number of unwanted senior leaders in the party is large,” he remarked.
Mohapatra, who has since long been ploughing a lonely furrow in the saffron party clearly because of his reservations about Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan being projected by the party high command as the BJP’s face in Odisha, told reporters that the party’s central leaders are not objective in their assessment of the State’s political realities. The neglected party leaders are now uncertain about their future, he stated.
The outcome of the upcoming Bijepur Assembly by-election would determine the future of the BJP in the State and the course of political developments, Mohapatra said. His comment obviously meant that the BJP leadership would think of giving importance to the “unwanted leaders” in the event of a defeat of the party in the Bijepur by-poll.
On BJD leader Damodar Rout’s suggestion of an alliance between the State’s ruling party and the Congress, Mohapatra said it appeared to be an impractical one