In Odisha, BJP is the preferred actor among popular state actors, with BJD not the only one
The Biju Janata Dal, which has ruled the state for 20 years, used to be the top choice for many well-known Odia movie stars who made the move into politics. Many of them even won seats in the state Assembly or Parliament. However, nearly all of them have defected to the BJP ahead of the simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Odisha, with Kendrapara MP Anubhav Mohanty being the most recent to do so on Monday. In 2014, Mohanty became the youngest member of the Rajya Sabha. In 2019, he was elected to the Lok Sabha, representing Kendrapara. In the presence of Vinod Tawde, the national general secretary of the party, he joined the BJP in New Delhi and stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s.
Mohanty had been deliberately excluded from all political activity for the previous four years by the BJD due to his long-standing marital dispute with his actress wife Varsha Priyadarshini. After a protracted and acrimonious legal struggle, the Orissa High Court awarded him a divorce in December of last year. Popular actor-turned-politician Siddhant Mohaptra, a two-term Berhampur MP, joined the BJP last week, and another well-known actor, former Korei MLA Akash Das Nayak, did the same on Sunday. Both are vying for an assembly ticket. Siddhant and Akash both said that their decision to join the BJP was caused by “neglect” in the BJD. With the departure of well-known actress Arindam Roy from the BJD to the BJP last month, a wave of movie stars began to defect.
Not only has veteran actor Prashanta Nanda, whose term in the Rajya Sabha ends on April 3, stopped participating in the BJD, but his son Rishabh, who joined the BJP prior to the 2019 elections, has also stopped participating in politics recently. No other actor has ever won Odisha Assembly or Lok Sabha polls from a party other than the BJD, with the exception of Nanda, who won two Assembly elections from Begunia on BJP tickets in 2000 and as an NCP nominee in 2009, both times with the BJD in coalition. On BJD tickets, Siddhant, Anubhav, and Akash each won their respective votes. Popular actresses Bijaya Mohanty and Aparajita Mohanty were fielded by the Congress in 2014 for the Lok Sabha seats in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, respectively, but both faced.
Aparajita joined the BJP in 2019 and ran from Bhubaneswar-North, however she lost once more. A top BJP leader commented that the addition of well-known movie stars to the party would benefit the party’s standing in the public’s eyes ahead of the 2024 elections because these actors have large fan bases.
