Pushed by Patnaik, BJD takes off gloves against Modi govt, joins Opp in House protest, walkouts

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reply in the Rajya Sabha Wednesday to the debate on the motion of thanks on the President’s address, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MPs joined the Congress-led Opposition members as they staged a walkout from the House in protest.

This was the second time in a week that the BJD MPs staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha, having also joined the Opposition INDIA alliance’s protest in the House on June 28 over their demand for a discussion on alleged paper leaks and irregularities in examinations like NEET and NET.

Known as a “trusted informal ally” of the ruling BJP-led NDA government for 10 years, the BJD has now changed its position in Parliament and outside after suffering debacles in the recent simultaneous elections in Odisha, which saw the BJP storming to power by clinching the Assembly polls, thereby ending the Naveen Patnaik-led party’s five-term reign. In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won 20 seats out of 21, while the BJD failed to even open its account, which marked a first for the party since its formation in 1997.

Currently, the BJD has nine MPs in the 245-member Rajya Sabha, where the NDA does not have a majority.

Early last week, when the first session of Parliament after the Lok Sabha polls began, the BJD announced that it would stop giving “issue-based support” to the BJP in the House. BJD supremo and five-time CM Patnaik held a meeting with his party’s Rajya Sabha MPs, asking them to ensure that the party goes all out to “protect the interests of Odisha” and emerges as a “strong and vibrant” Opposition in Parliament.

According to the BJD camp, Patnaik’s message to his MPs was: “No more support to BJP, only opposition”. This was a marked shift from the party’s stand in the last 10