TNI Bureau: Five-time MLA Arabinda Dhali, who resigned from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) earlier today, announced to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tomorrow.

With his announcement, Dhali became the third sitting MLA to join the saffron party.  Earlier, expelled BJD MLAs Pradeep Panigrahy from Gopalpur and Prashant Jagdev from Chilika also joined the BJP recently. Likewise, former state minister Debasis Nayak of the ruling party also joined BJD.

While Jayadev MLA Arabinda Dhali sent his resignation letter to BJD president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik through e-mail. However, he did not mention the reason of his resignation.

Dhali became the MLA first time after winning Malkangiri seat in a by-election in 1992 on a BJP ticket. He won the seat for two consecutive terms in 1995 and 2000 before joining the BJD. He was the Transport and Corporation minister in 2000. Dhali lost the 2004 elections by just 253 votes. He had to move out of Malkangiri after the seat was reserved for STs.

Dhali was elected to the assembly from Jayadev in 2009 and 2019. It is believed that Dhali does not any good support base in Jayadev, but he has very good influence on Bengali voters in Malkangiri and Umerkote which may affect BJD badly in Nabarangpur Lok Sabha and both the Assembly seats.