Bhubaneswar, April 6: Raghunath Mohanty, a former minister and five-time MLA from Basta in Balasore district, has formally resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Odisha. His resignation letter was submitted today to the Odisha BJP president, Manmohan Samal.
Mohanty had joined the BJP in 2019 after resigning from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD). In the 2019 elections, he contested from Basta on a BJP ticket but was defeated by the BJD’s Nityananda Sahoo. Ahead of the Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly polls, former MP and senior leader Rabi Narayan Pani tomorrow resigned from the primary membership of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
His political journey began in 1990 when he was elected to the Odisha Legislative Assembly from Basta, representing the Lok Sabha Constituency. He retained the seat in subsequent elections held in 1995, 2000, 2004, and 2009.
Mohanty, once a prominent figure in the BJD, faced internal disciplinary actions after being implicated in a dowry torture case filed by his daughter-in-law, Barsa Sony Choudhury. This led to his removal from the party’s vice-president post and eventually expulsion from the party. However, he was later reinstated into the BJD in 2017.
