Which other party will expelled Congress leader Soumya Ranjan Patnaik joinIJ While the question is doing rounds in political circles, Patnaik seems to have no chance to come the folds of the State’s two other parties, the ruling BJD and the BJP as both parties, according to their sources, would be reluctant to induct him.
The BJD, which in the past spurned Patnaik’s move to get elected to Rajya Sabha either on its ticket or with its support, is averse to the family of the Patnaiks of the Congress, the two other leaders being former PCC president Niranjan Patnaik and present Assam Governor JB Patnaik.
The BJP, which now has too many leaders, also appears to be far from willing to embrace Soumya Patnaik because of his past track record of deserting the party, his first one, to switch over to the Congress and then joining the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and then returning to the Congress fold.
Observers say that though Soumya Patnaik commands a major media house in the State which would benefit a party which admits him in, his overbearing style of functioning is not acceptable to any major party.
Patnaik, however, has a scope to join hands with Pyarimohan Mohapatra by aligning with the latter’s Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM). But there is a catch here as is evident from what Mohapatra said at his news conference on Wednesday. Mohapatra indicated that Patnaik would not be individually taken into the OJM fold, and what he said was that any new party formed by Patnaik could join the “Grand Alliance” the OJM is going to engineer soon.
As Patnaik has already announced that he will not sit idle at home after his expulsion from the Congress, he will no doubt keep exploring new political options especially when the general elections are nearing fast. Till then, he has to keep himself afloat in politics with what he has declared a Sampark Yatra after the Durga Puja to connect with people. Hitherto, he had launched a Sankalp Yatra, which cost him deer with his removal from the Congress.