Rift in BJD intensifies over Waqf bill voting stance

The alleged rift in the opposition BJD over its flip-flop stand on the Waqf Bill voting further widened on Thursday with former party MLA Pravat Tripathy accusing party president Naveen Patnaik of attempting to divert attention from the main issue and lying about his expulsion from the regional outfit.

Addressing a press conference, Tripathy alleged that Patnaik in his statement to the media on Wednesday did not speak on the Waqf Bill voting issue which has created ripples across the party and the state over BJD’s change of stand at the last moment.

"He (Patnaik) lied on my suspension. The party revoked action against me in 2017. I did not urge the party to revoke my suspension, but he (Patnaik) revoked it keeping in view my requirements. Therefore, I extensively campaigned for BJD during the 2019 and 2024 elections," Tripathy claimed.

While giving a clean chit to his close aide VK Pandian, the BJD president has said Tripathy was expelled from the party some years ago.

"I want to state clearly that ex-MLA Pravat Tripathy was expelled from the Biju Janata Dal some years ago because he was indicted in a chit-fund case and spent some years in jail. I want to clarify again that he doesn’t belong to the party," Patnaik had said on Wednesday.

Countering Patnaik’s statement, the former MLA asserted, "I was a member of BJD till Wednesday evening. During the 2019 elections, the BJD president and then chief minister was present at the meeting which I had addressed. I also attended party programmes in Cuttack district after the COVID pandemic," he said and displayed documents and photographs to justify his claim.

Tripathy added, "The then No. 2 in the BJD (referring to Pandian) had hailed my contribution to the party. If this person has withdrawn from active politics and not involved in any party activities for the past 10 months, then why is the needle of suspicion over the split voting pointing towards him," he asked.

Tripathy, who did not contest the polls in 2019 and 2024 and his son Devi Ranjan Tripathy replaced him as the BJD MLA from Banki assembly segment, came to the limelight when he joined the bandwagon in the Waqf voting issue where BJD MPs voted both for and against the Bill.

Like some other leaders, Tripathy too had indicated that Pandian was the person who diluted the BJD stand at the last moment of the voting.

He held the former bureaucrat responsible for the BJD’s defeat in the 2024 election.

Tripathy continues to have influence in Banki assembly segment in Cuttack district as he won the seat four times in 1995, 2000, 2009 and 2014.

His son Devi Ranjan Tripathy retained the seat in 2019 and 2024.

BJD was yet to react to Tripathy’s allegations.

Though the regional party initially decided to oppose the Bill, it changed its stand and told party MPs to vote according to their conscience.

This led to at least one BJD MP (Sasmit Patra) voting in support of the Bill while another abstained (Debasish Samantray). Five other MPs have not revealed to whom they voted. The BJD has seven MPs in the Rajya Sabha.

With the majority of the party leaders realising that the BJD’s secular stand on the Waqf Bill was questioned due to confusion in voting, many indirectly blamed Patnaik’s close aide Pandian, who quit active politics 10 months ago after BJD’s defeat in both Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Though BJD’s Rajya Sabha floor leader Sasmit Patra issued a social media post informing all party MPs that they can vote as per conscience, many leaders suspected that he (Patra) might have made such a change at the last moment at the instruction of Pandian.

MP Debasish Samantaray, who abstained from voting on the Bill, has also expressed his displeasure over the last-minute change in the party’s stand, indicating at Pandian.

However, Patnaik on Wednesday made it clear that Pandian should not be held responsible or blamed for the activities of BJD, as the bureaucrat-turned-politician had already been away from active politics for over 10 months.

Meanwhile, Patra has reached New Delhi after his foreign tour but was yet to clarify his stand on the Waqf Bill voting issue.