Dikhyaa Mohanty 
Three days after leaving the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Sudarshan Jena, a former Remuna MLA, became a member of Congress today. At the state headquarters of the Congress, Jena and his followers joined the party in the presence of Ajoy Kumar, the State In-Charge of the party, and Sarat Pattanayak, the President of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC).
“We have joined the Congress in an effort to preserve democracy, secularism, and the nation’s Constitution. Our goal is to destroy the BJD and the BJP,” Jena declared upon joining the Congress. On the BJD ticket, Jena was elected to the Odisha Assembly in 2009. With 55,847 votes, he had won. But in 2014, he was defeated by Gobinda Chandra Das, the BJP candidate, by a margin of almost 13,000 votes. Rather than giving Jena a party ticket in 2019, the BJD gave one to Sudhansu Sekhar Parida, who went on to win.
On March 8, Jena sent a letter of resignation to BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik, stating that he was being excluded and humiliated within the party and that this was the reason for his resignation.
