Bhubaneswar, April 5: Former vice presidents of the Odisha Congress, Rajat Choudhury and Biswabhusan Das, along with their supporters, officially joined the BJP at the party headquarters in Bhubaneswar on Friday.

While Rajat had parted ways with the Congress on March 1, Biswabhusan submitted his resignation from both his position and primary membership earlier on the same day. Rajat, a former Pradesh Youth Congress president and state unit general secretary, had played a pivotal role in the party's organizational affairs.

Biswabhusan, who had previously contested unsuccessfully in the 2009 and 2019 elections from the Kakatpur Assembly constituency on the Congress ticket, also made the switch.

Adding to Congress's woes, Trinath Behera, a prominent leader and MLA candidate from Hindol in the 2014 and 2019 elections, has also decided to leave the party and is expected to join the BJP.

This string of exits from the Congress, especially with elections looming, deals a significant blow to the party's efforts to bolster its ranks and position itself as a viable alternative in the state post the 2024 elections.

Furthermore, speculation is rife that senior leader Santosh Singh Saluja, Congress's candidate from Kantabanji, might follow suit and defect to the BJD.

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