Baijayant Jay Panda said on Monday he was quitting the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) months after he was suspended from the primary membership of Odisha’s ruling party amid a widening rift with chief minister Naveen Patnaik. “It is with deep anguish, hurt and sorrow that I have decided to quit the kind of politics into which our BJD has descended,” he wrote in his three-page letter resignation letter to party head Patnaik. Panda said he was “hurt and unhappy” over the fact that members of the ruling party did not attend the funeral of his father Bansidhar Panda. The well-known industrialist died on May 22 in Bhubaneswar.

Baijayant Jay Panda said on Monday he was quitting the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) months after he was suspended from the primary membership of Odisha’s ruling party amid a widening rift with chief minister Naveen Patnaik. “It is with deep anguish, hurt and sorrow that I have decided to quit the kind of politics into which our BJD has descended,” he wrote in his three-page letter resignation letter to party head Patnaik. Panda said he was “hurt and unhappy” over the fact that members of the ruling party did not attend the funeral of his father Bansidhar Panda. The well-known industrialist died on May 22 in Bhubaneswar.