A MONTH after the Twitter spat between BJD MPs Baijayant Panda and Tathagat Satpathy over the BJP’s alleged attempt at dividing the parliamentary party, another party MP, Bhartruhari Mahtab, has said that the BJD was showing its weakness by reacting to the BJP’s rise in the state. Mahtab, leader of BJD’s parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha, wrote in a newspaper article on Tuesday that while the BJP is going all out to prepare its strategy for the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the BJD was on the defensive. “As a result, the BJD is giving statements out of desperation, which exposes its weakness,” he wrote in the article in Odia daily Nirbhay. Mahtab’s comments on the BJD’s strategy in dealing with a resurgent BJP has left the regional party red-faced. Party MP Nagendra Pradhan said that whatever Mahtab wrote was his personal opinion. “The BJD is not losing its cool and there are no any internal differences,” he said. Party MLA Dibyashankar Mishra said that if anyone is willing to say something about the party, then he should discuss it with the chief minister directly.
