Bhubaneswar: BJD leader Munna Khan Thursday dubbed Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab and cine star Sidhant Mohapatra, also a former parliamentarian, a “big zero in Odisha politics” after they joined the BJP in Delhi.
Mahtab has represented the Cuttack seat as a BJD MP for six terms, while Mohapatra was a BJD lawmaker from Berhampur seat for two terms.
Khan, a Rajya Sabha MP, told reporters, “Both of them do not have any identity of their own in Odisha politics and they could remain in Parliament only by the grace of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The BJP would realise their worth after the polls.”
“They are a big zero in Odisha politics. They cannot win even an election for a ward member’s post without the support of Naveen babu,” Khan claimed, adding both have “betrayed” the trust of Patnaik by quitting the regional outfit.
Khan claimed Mohapatra had never raised any issue pertaining to Odisha’s interest during his 10 years in Parliament.
“Their exit from our party will have no impact on its electoral prospects,” he said.
Neither Mahtab nor Mohapatra was available for comment.
Odisha BJP vice-president Golak Mohapatra, however, expressed wonder as to how the BJD could call a six-time MP and a two-term parliamentarian a “big zero”.
“It is laughable to call people quitting BJD as ‘big zero’,” he said.
Sixty-seven-year-old Mahtab, a founding member of the BJD, joined the BJP in the presence of senior leaders at the saffron party’s headquarters in New Delhi.
He was accompanied by Mohapatra and noted Santali language litterateur Damayanti Beshra, who was conferred the Padma Shri in 2020.
Mahtab, who resigned from the BJD on March 22, said there was a “wave of change” in Odisha and the “BJP is the medium of that change”.
Mahtab was elected to the Lok Sabha from Cuttack seat in 1998, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. He had defeated BJP’s Prakash Mishra by a huge margin in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Mohapatra had quit the BJD earlier.
PTI
