Bhubaneswar: In a significant setback to the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Bhadrak district, the two sons of senior BJD leader and party vice-president Prafulla Samal joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday, along with a large contingent of supporters and several key organisational leaders.
Prayaskanti Samal and Pranitkanti Samal formally joined the BJP during a grand ‘mishran parva’ (joining ceremony) held at the party’s state headquarters in Bhubaneswar, where they were welcomed with the party flag.
The event saw an outpouring of enthusiasm, marked by drumbeats and fireworks, as Prayaskanti arrived with more than a hundred supporters.
In a further blow to the BJD’s organisational strength in Bhadrak, the block presidents of Bhadrak, Bont, Bhandaripokhari, and Basudevpur—all joining under Prayaskanti’s leadership—also switched allegiance to the BJP. Several sarpanches, samiti members, and numerous district- and block-level functionaries from Bhadrak resigned from the BJD to join the saffron party.
The mass joining ceremony, attended by Odisha BJP state president Manmohan Samal, is being seen as a major political development in Bhadrak district ahead of upcoming organisational and electoral exercises.
