Ex-MLA disputes Naveen’s claim on expulsion

Bhubaneswar: Former BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy has challenged party president and former CM Naveen Patnaik's Wednesday statement regarding his expulsion from the party, intensifying the political debate surrounding the recent Rajya Sabha voting controversy.
Tripathy, speaking to media persons on Thursday, clarified that he was suspended from the party in 2014, with the suspension being revoked in 2017. Contradicting Naveen's assertion that Tripathy had been expelled from the party years ago, the latter said he had campaigned for the party in 2019 and 2024.
The former legislator alleged that these claims were an attempt to deflect attention from the contentious issue of BJD Rajya Sabha members being permitted to exercise their conscience vote in the upper house.
"The facts need to be set straight. I was never expelled from the party," Tripathy said adding another dimension to the ongoing political discourse in Odisha, where the BJD's handling of recent parliamentary proceedings has come under internal scrutiny.
Responding to Naveen's statement of he being indicted by the court in chit fund scam, Tripathy said when the matter is pending in the court, the BJD chief should not have mentioned that.
BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty countered Tripathy's claims as false, saying, Every word that the party president said is correct." Lenin said the former MLA had resorted to lies and is misleading people on the chit fund case against him.
Meanwhile, BJD Rajya Sabha member Sasmit Patra, whose social media post on party's conscience vote on Waqf Bill, led to the ongoing controversy and internal discord in the regional party, returned from Tashkent in Uzbekistan to Delhi after attending 150th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly.