The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Friday suspended its senior leader and former minister Prafulla Mallik, who had been among the group of veterans to question the party’s style of functioning since the 2024 election defeat.
A statement issued by the party said Mallik was suspended “for his involvement in anti-party activities”. Mallik’s suspension came two days after two senior leaders — N Bhaskar Rao, a former Rajya Sabha member, and former minister Lal Bihari Himirika — resigned from the BJD after questioning its style of functioning.
The 78-year-old four-time MLA from Kamakhyanagar Assembly constituency in Dhenkanal district had held key portfolios as a minister. After the BJD’s defeat in 2024, he has alleged that the party has failed to function as the main Opposition in the state. On Thursday, he warned that he would quit the party if its functioning is not streamlined and put in order.
Mallik told reporters on Friday that he resigned from the party on personal grounds early in the morning. “I never indulged in any anti-party activities,” he said.
A leader with strong grassroots connections, Mallik tasted defeat for the first time in the 2024 Assembly election, losing by over 4,000 votes to BJP’s Satrughna Jena. Though known to be a loyalist of BJD president Naveen Patnaik when the party was in power, Mallik was sidelined from any organisational role after the 2024 polls.
Following BJD’s defeat, the veteran leader was among a group of senior party leaders who questioned the way the election was managed.
Amid rumblings in the BJD in April after the party’s change of stance over the Waqf Bill in Rajya Sabha, Mallik was among the group of leaders who openly questioned the decision at the last moment to allow MPs to vote as per their conscience.
Mallik had earlier raised questions on the party extending support to the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre.
Mallik was also among the dozen BJD veterans who met at a city hotel in April and said they would not allow “any outside force to weaken Patnaik’s leadership”.
Though Mallik never targeted the BJD president, he was among the senior leaders who questioned the growing influence of Patnaik’s close aide V K Pandian in the BJD, even though the latter has announced his exit from active politics.
