Bhubaneswar: Bringing the curtains down on all speculations, sitting Nabarangpur MP BalabhadraMajhi, who resigned from primary membership of BJD only a couple of days ago, officially joined the BJP in New Delhion Saturday.
Majhi joined the saffron party in the presence of Union Tribal Minister JualOram and Union Petroleum Minister DharmendraPradhan, BJP’s National Vice-President Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda and party’s Odisha in-charge Arun Singh.
Speaking to media persons, Majhi said he joined politics to work for the upliftment of people of Nabarangpur.
“Despite improving infrastructure in Nabarangpur constituency, keeping me away from important party forum meets is a sort of humiliation to me.District and State-level BJD leaders completely ignored me. When theydidn't deem it fit to consult on party ticket with a sitting MP, I called enough is enoughand resigned, said Majhi.
Welcoming Majhi, Union Petroleum Minister DharmendraPradhansaid "Majhi played a stellar role in making Centre and State machineries work in unison to expand the railway network in Odisha's backward areas mostly in Nabarangpur and Koraput. At a time when his party let him down, he decided to hold PM Modi's hand for the overalldevelopment of State,” said Pradhan.
TermingMajhi as one of the few hard working MPs from Odisha in the 16th LokSabha, Union Tribal Affairs Minister and senior BJP leader JualOramsaid "Balabhadra worked consistently to expand the rail network to Malkangiri.”
Reacting to Majhi joining BJP, State Finance Minister and Senior BJD leader SashiBhusanBehera, however, tried to downplay the episode calling it an expected trend during every election."Such ins-and-outs are not new in 2019. This had happened in earlier polls", said Behera.