Bhubaneswar: After Jayadev MLA Arabinda Dhali, Telkoi MLA Premananda Nayak and rebel BJD leader Rajendra Das joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today.
The ex-BJD leader and former Dhamnagar MLA joined the saffron party in the presence of senior party leaders at the party’s headquarters here.
On February 9, Nayak resigned from the primary membership of BJD.
He was first elected to the State Legislative Assembly in the year 2009. He won the Assembly polls twice on the BJD ticket in 2009 and 2019. He was allotted the Skill Development and Technical Education portfolio in Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s cabinet.
On the other hand, rebel BJD leader Rajendra Das had won the Assembly polls from Dhamnagar on a BJD ticket in 2009. After the party denied him a ticket in 2019 polls, he contested as an independent candidate posing a threat to the BJD. As a result, the ruling party’s candidate lost to the BJP’s Bishnu Charan Sethi in the 2019 elections.
