In a significant setback to the Biju Janata Dal, its MP Mamata Mahanta Wednesday resigned from the Rajya Sabha, two years before completion of her tenure. The leader from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj also resigned from the regional party, saying she was taking the “hard decision in public interest”. The move, which her party colleagues called “sudden and unexpected”, comes at a time the BJD has stepped up its attack against the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. After the BJD’s defeat in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls, the regional party had announced that it would stop lending “issue-based support” to the NDA government at the Centre, and become a “strong and vibrant” opposition in Parliament. This is a departure from its stand before the drubbing in the simultaneous polls. Announcing Mahanta’s resignation from the Upper House, Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said he had received a letter from her in this regard. “She has resigned from her seat by writing to the chairman, and handed (the letter) personally to me. The same I find constitutionally in order. I have accepted the resignation with immediate effect,” Dhankhar announced in the House. Speculation is rife that Mahanta could join the BJP. Hours before her resignation from the Rajya Sabha and the BJD, she had attended the morning session. With her resignation, BJD’s number in the Rajya Sabha comes down to eight. The BJP has one member in Rajya Sabha from Odisha – Ashwini Vaishnaw, who was elected earlier this year. In her resignation letter from the party, Mahanta expressed her gratitude to BJD chief Naveen Patnaik for giving her the opportunity to serve the people of Mayurbhanj and to represent the state at the national level. “However, I feel that there is no requirement of the services of myself as well as my community in the Biju Janata Dal. Therefore, I have taken this hard decision in public interest,” she wrote. Mahanta (47) comes from the Kudumi caste, a backward community that has a strong presence in the Mayurbhanj region. She was elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2020 along with three other BJD members. A grassroots leader and a lesser known figure at the time, her nomination had taken many by surprise. A graduate, she was a zilla parishad member in 2012-17 and earlier served as the president of the BJD’s women wing in the tribal-dominated district. She was also associated with the self-help group movement in Mayurbhanj under the Patnaik government’s much-hyped Mission Shakti initiative. The BJD, which had faced a setback in Mayurbhanj in 2019 by losing six of nine assembly seats in the district as well as the Lok Sabha seat, had planned to regain its bastion with a revised strategy. This was seen as a reason behind Mahanta’s nomination to the Rajya Sabha in 2020. Though the regional party managed to do well in the 2022 panchayat polls in Mayurbhanj, it was wiped out in the recently held Lok Sabha and assembly polls.
