BHUBANESWAR: The BJD on Tuesday removed MLA Soumya Ranjan Patnaik from the post of party’s vice-president. The development comes in the backdrop of Soumya’s criticism of a bureaucrat over the past few days.
An office order issued by the BJD and signed by party president Naveen Patnaik said Soumya has been removed from the post of vice-president with immediate effect. However, it doesn’t cite any reason for the removal.
Posting Soumya’s removal order on social media, BJD organizational secretary Pranab Prakash Das wrote, “Gratitude is the best mode of prayer. Even God can’t help if you are ungrateful.”
Responding to his removal from the post, Soumya expressed doubt whether Naveen’s signature on his removal order was genuine or fake. Stating that he lost nothing following his removal from an ornamental post, Soumya said, “There is one notable thing in my removal order. It bears signature of chief minister Naveen Patnaik. I have my own doubt if the signature is original or forged.”
Soumya, a media baron, said the reason for his suspicion regarding the veracity of Naveen’s signature comes from the fact that he had sought two minutes for an interaction with the chief minister last week.
“Instead of time, a removal order was issued. Otherwise, it is up to the party president to decide on whom he wants to keep as his associate. In the BJD, there are many such posts where one hardly does anything apart from holding onto the post,” Soumya said.
Soumya has written a couple of opinion pieces in a newspaper edited by him, questioning the functioning of the bureaucrat recently. He also defended the same while speaking to the media and countered the criticism that was directed towards him by BJD leaders on the issue. Minister Pratap Keshari Deb had dared him to resign from the BJD if he wanted to express his opinion going against party discipline.
Soumya had joined the BJD in 2018 after leading a regional outfit ‘Aama Odisha’ following his departure from the Congress in 2013. Before that, Soumya was vice-president of the state BJP from 1993 to 1995.
An office order issued by the BJD and signed by party president Naveen Patnaik said Soumya has been removed from the post of vice-president with immediate effect. However, it doesn’t cite any reason for the removal.
Posting Soumya’s removal order on social media, BJD organizational secretary Pranab Prakash Das wrote, “Gratitude is the best mode of prayer. Even God can’t help if you are ungrateful.”
Responding to his removal from the post, Soumya expressed doubt whether Naveen’s signature on his removal order was genuine or fake. Stating that he lost nothing following his removal from an ornamental post, Soumya said, “There is one notable thing in my removal order. It bears signature of chief minister Naveen Patnaik. I have my own doubt if the signature is original or forged.”
Soumya, a media baron, said the reason for his suspicion regarding the veracity of Naveen’s signature comes from the fact that he had sought two minutes for an interaction with the chief minister last week.
“Instead of time, a removal order was issued. Otherwise, it is up to the party president to decide on whom he wants to keep as his associate. In the BJD, there are many such posts where one hardly does anything apart from holding onto the post,” Soumya said.
Soumya has written a couple of opinion pieces in a newspaper edited by him, questioning the functioning of the bureaucrat recently. He also defended the same while speaking to the media and countered the criticism that was directed towards him by BJD leaders on the issue. Minister Pratap Keshari Deb had dared him to resign from the BJD if he wanted to express his opinion going against party discipline.
Soumya had joined the BJD in 2018 after leading a regional outfit ‘Aama Odisha’ following his departure from the Congress in 2013. Before that, Soumya was vice-president of the state BJP from 1993 to 1995.
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