Bhubaneswar, Jan 24: Former minister and five-time MLA Balabhadra Majhi, who resigned from BJD recently joined the Congress at a function held at Bhawanipatna of Kalahandi district today.
Balabhradra Majhi along with his hundreds of supporters came in a procession and joined the Congress party in the presence of AICC Odisha in-charge Dr. Ajoy Kumar, PCC chief Sarat Pattanayak, and senior Congress leader Bhakta Charan Das.
After joining the grand old party, Majhi said that he had joined the Congress party for the interest of the local people,On January 8, Majhi had sent his resignation to party president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik alleging that he had been sidelined in the party since 2019,
Tribal leader Majhi, who started his political career as a Janata Dal MLA from the Narla assembly constituency in 1990, won four times consecutively from this seat. He was elected in 1990, 1995 as a Janata Dal nominee, and in 2000 and 2004 as a BJD candidate.
During the delimitation of seats in 2009, the Narla assembly seat came under the general category, and the Lanjigarh seat was reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. Balabhadra had fought the election as BJD nominee from Lanjigarh in 2009 and lost to the Congress candidate.
In 2014, Balabhadra won from Lanjigarh as BJD nominee. But he was denied a party ticket in 2019. BJD fielded Pradeep Dishari, who won the election
The senior leader from Kalahandi was the minister of state for SC and ST Development twice between 2002 and 2006.
Congress has been facilitating the return of senior leaders to the party who in the past jumped to other political outfits under different circumstances, with an eye on the 2024 elections in Odisha.
On Tuesday the party revoked the suspension of two senior leaders -Cuttack-Barabati MLA Mohammed Moquim and former working president Chiranjeev Biswal- and also repealed the expulsion of former MLA Krushna Chandra Sagaria.
Former Odisha chief minister Giridhar Gamang (80) rejoined the Congress along with his wife and son, after nine years, on January 17.
