Party dissidents lock BJP state HQ in Odisha\, anger overflows

Party dissidents lock BJP state HQ in Odisha, anger overflows

Press Trust of India  |  Bhubaneswar 

dissidents angry over denial of party tickets to them continued to the state party headquarters and kept its main gate locked for the second day on Saturday.

This forced the party to induct Pratyusha Rajeswar Singh at the residence of senior leader K V Singhdeo during the day.

The state will witness simultaneous election to 21 Lok Sabha and 147 state assembly seats in four phases from April 11.

The has so far announced candidates for 15 of the state's 21 Lok Sabha seats and 121 of 147 assembly seat.

Protests were in the beginning held by supporters of who has been denied a BJP ticket from seat. BJP has fielded Babu Singh, who recently joined the saffron party after quitting BJD, from the constituency.

Though the supporters of Dash withdrew their on Friday night, they resumed the protest before the office on Saturday. They were later joined by dissident BJP leaders from Aul, Rajnagar, Digapandi and some other places.

All the dissidents alleged that the party has promoted turncoats as candidates foe the coming polls ignoring the original workers who have been working for BJP for a long time.

Similar reports of dissidents locking the BJP district offices were received from Keonjhar, Bhadrak among other places. There were voices of protest against BJP state Basant Kumar Panda, who has been announced the party's candidate from Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat where senior leader was denied ticket.

Nayak has been fielded to contest from Bhawanipatna assembly seat.

The supporters of BJP leader also burnt an effigy of after the party named as its candidate from Bargarh Lok Sabha seat.

Chouhan, who had lost the Lok Sabha polls by a margin of 11,183 votes, was a strong contender for the Bargarh seat.

There was tension at the party office at Laxmipur in district as BJP workers burnt effigies of Pradhan and BJP and ransacked it after the party gave ticket to Kumud Saunta.

The dissidents also threatened mass resignation, alleging that the party had ignored six aspirants and given ticket to someone who joined the party only two months ago.

At Bhadrak, BJP leader supporters locked up the party's office there against the allotting of party ticket to Madhabananda Mallick in seat.

There were also protests against the candidature of Dola Gobind Nayak and Alekh Jena for Aul and Rajanagar Assembly seats in district.

Reacting to the growing dissidence, BJP said "This shows BJP is gaining popularity. Never before there was such craze for BJP tickets."

said "We are a Therefore, people raise their voices. We will resolve the issue through discussion."

The too faced protests by partymen over allotment of tickets to new comers and the district party office was locked up like that of BJP in at least one place.

There was report of clash between two groups of the party at Nilgiri in district where the supporters of Chittaranjan Sadangi have been opposing candidature of Manoja Manjari Devi, a member of the royal family there.

Dissidents in Jharsuguda assembly segment locked up the district office protesting against nomination of there.

The Jharsuguda seat was won in 2014 by candidate Naba Kishore Das, who has switched over to the BJD.

Dissidence activities were also reported from Sundergarh and Chitrakonda assembly segments.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Sat, March 23 2019. 21:15 IST