Insight Bureau: Former Congress leader Pradeep Majhi, who had resigned from the party a few days ago, has joined BJD along with thousands of supporters. BJD’s Organisation Secretary & Jajpur MLA Pranab Prakash Das as well as Odisha Ministers Tushar Kanti Behera and Padmini Dian attended the Mishrana Parba in Nabarangpur.
Many Congress leaders and workers had already resigned from the party while pledging support to Pradeep Majhi. They joined the BJD officially today.
Pradeep Majhi, who had taken a different line from his father former Rajya Sabha MP Bhagaban Majhi (then BJD President in Nabarangpur) and started his career from Congress, rose to the top from Zilla Parishad Chairperson to Odisha Youth Congress President to Nabarangpur Lok Sabha MP. He was later appointed the Working President of the Congress.
He resigned from the primary membership of the Congress after seeing no hopes to serve the people. It’s believed that he would sent to Rajya Sabha next year.
Pradeep had defeated Domburu Majhi of the BJD in 2009 elections to become the Lok Sabha MP for the first time.
In 2014 elections, Pradeep suffered a narrow defeat to BJD’s Balabhadra Majhi. He secured 371,845 votes, but lost by 2,042 votes to BJD (373,887). BJP candidate Parsuram Majhi had secured 138,430 votes.
In 2019, Pradeep started as a favourite, but due to BJP’s growth thanks to Modi Factor, he lost to BJD’s Ramesh Chandra Majhi by 41,634 votes. Pradeep got 350,870 votes while Ramesh got 392,504. Balabhadra Majhi, who defected to BJP, secured 342,839 votes.
