Bhubaneswar: Three days after quitting the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) former Remuna MLA Sudarshan Jena today joined the Congress party.
Jena along with his supporters joined the Congress at the party’s state headquarters here in the presence of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Sarat Pattanayak and the party’s State In-Charge Ajoy Kumar among others.
“We have joined the Congress to save the country’s Constitution, secularism and democracy. To defeat both the BJD and BJP is our objective,” said Jena after joining the Congress.
Jena was elected to the Odisha Assembly in 2009 on a BJD ticket. He had polled 55,847 votes. However, in 2014 he lost to BJP candidate Gobinda Chandra Das by a margin of more than 13,000 votes. In 2019, the BJD allotted a party ticket to Sudhansu Sekhar Parida instead of Jena and Parida won.
Jena on March 8 sent his resignation letter to BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik citing that he has been sidelined and humiliated in the party and hence is resigning.
