After cornering Rajya Sabha member Kalpataru Das, who had emerged as a strongman in the BJD in the run-up to the elections and even after that, on the discretionary allotment issue, the dissidents in the ruling party are now trying to tighten the screws around him.
The dissidents, sidelined by party supremo Naveen Patnaik, apparently at Das’ promptings, during the elections and formation of the Government, are now gathering courage to challenge the group led by Das.
According to sources, Kendrapada MP Baijayant Panda and former Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai held an hour-long discussion at the latter’s house on Saturday apparently to create a pressure group within the party against the Das-led faction. Ghadai, the bitter rival of Das in the Jajpur district politics, is the worst sufferer as he was denied party ticket to seek re-election from his Sukinda constituency this time and, instead, his son Priti Ranjan Ghadai was shifted from his Korei seat to Sukinda.
A meeting of BJD leaders was also held at the residence of Excise and Cooperation Minister Damodar Rout the same day. The party is now dominated by two factions. One group is led by Kalpataru Das and some of the leaders in his faction have been inducted in the Ministry and given crucial portfolios without having any experience. The other group consists of dissidents, who were cornered either during the election by being denied tickets or during the Ministry making by not being given plum portfolios or by being denied a berth altogether.
Ghadai, Kalindi Behera, Rabi Narayan Nanda and several senior leaders, besides the eight former MPs who were denied tickets during the 2014 elections, have now joined the dissident ranks. The others in the group are Pratap Jena, Ranendra Pratap Swain and Debasis Nayak, who were denied Ministerial berths.