Rift in Berhampur BJD comes to the fore

Berhampur: Feud between two factions of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) corporators in Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) has come to the fore even as they met regional party supremo Naveen Pat-naik in Bhubaneswar on December 16.

Most of the BJD corporators of the two warring groups, who were summoned by the party high command, went to Bhubaneswar by bus and car, and returned to Berhampur on Wednesday night. Naveen appealed to the warring groups to maintain unity in the or-ganisation and cautioned them not to publicly criticise each other.

It seems the warring factions are in no mood to relent, said a BJD corporator. Out of 42 wards in BeMC, BJD has 36, BJP-3, Congress-1 and Independent-2. While one faction of BJD corporators is led by Mayor Sanghamitra Dalei and supported by former MLA Ramesh Chandra Chau Patnaik, the other group is supported by former Berhampur MLA Bikram Kumar Panda. Both the factions claim to have support of 26 to 27 BJD corporators, sources said. Twentyfive BJD corporators had recently come together and open-ly oppo sed Berhampur Mayor Sanghamitra Dalei. The disgruntled corporators even held a press conference recently exposing re-sentment among party workers and leaders. In view of the growing resentment in the party cadre, Naveen called all the 36 corpora-tors of BeMC for a discussion recently to sort out the differences.

The rift between the BJD corporators erupted after one faction al-leged that the BeMC council, led by Sanghamitra Dalei, hurriedly transferred Rs 63 lakh to the Trustee of Ramlingeswar Tank Amusement Water Project, which is 40 per cent of the total in-come from the project and was intentional. The faction also criti-cised the digital membership drive, sources said. Ganjam is the home district of BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik. Rift in the BJD in Ganjam has erupted after the party’s debacle in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.