In the latest political merry-go-round, the Odisha unit vice president and a prominent woman face of BJP Lekhasri Samantsinghar on Sunday resigned from the primary membership of the party.

Keeping in tune with the ongoing party-hopping trends of political faces switching sides, Samantsighar joined the BJD hours after resigning from the party, amid speculation that the regional party may field her from Balasore parliamentary constituency.

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Samantsighar had often grabbed the headlines for launching a frontal attack on the Naveen Patnaik government describing it as a corrupt government. She was an aspirant for party ticket either for the Assembly or the Lok Sabha. Denial of party ticket is being singled out as the sole factor that prompted Samantsighar to sever a decade-long tie with BJP.

“I feel there is nothing left for me to do here and my desire to serve the people of Odisha is being hampered. I hereby resign from the primary membership of the BJP with immediate effect”, Samantsinghar stated in the ‘X’ handle.

Odisha is going to simultaneous polls for the 147 Assembly and 21 Lok Sabha seats on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.

Interestingly, at least 30 per cent of the BJD candidates for the Lok Sabha seats are turncoats, who joined the party only recently. The party has announced candidates for 20 out of 21 Lok Sabha segments so far.

“Musical chairs”, a metaphor for party hopping and switching political affiliation to fight polls, has apparently assumed near-absurd proportions at the arena of electoral politics in Odisha if the prevailing political trend ahead of the simultaneous polls in the coastal State is anything to go by. All the major players are infected with it.

Despite firmly ensconced in power since 2000, the BJD in a desperate bid to maintain hegemony in electoral politics, has roped in party-hoppers in as many as seven Lok Sabha constituencies – Bhubaneswar, Kendrapara, Berhampur, Nabarangpur, Balangir, Bargarh and Keonjhar. Of the 21 LS seats, BJD has so far named candidates for 20 seats.

The prominent BJD leaders who resigned from party’s primary membership ahead of polls are Bhatruhari Mahatab, Anubhav Mohanty, Sidhant Mohapatra, Arka Keshari Deo, Akash Das Nayak, Sanjeeb Kumar Sahoo, Arabinda Dhali, Priyadarshi Mishra, Purna Chandra Sethi, Trinath Gamang, Rajendra Das, Ramesh Chandra Sai, Premanand Nayak, Tajeswar Parida, Raghuram Machha, Dushmsmta Swain.

Similarly, Bhrugu Baxipatra, Raghunath Mohanty, Sukanta Mohanty, Prakash Behera, Madhab Dhada, Ramakanta Bhoi have quit the BJP.

Congress is also equally hit by party hopping phenomenon with Pradeep Majhi, Anshuman Mohanty, Manmath Routray, Surendra Singh Bhoi, Dhanurjaya Sidu, K Surya Rao, Rohit Tirkey, Adhiraj Panigrahi quitting the party.

Majority of these party-hoppers have been incidentally allotted tickets to fight polls either for Lok Sabha or the Assembly.

Party changeover by politicians has become a rule rather than an aberration in Odisha. Electoral musical chairs have turned the pre-poll scene theatrical. It has made a mockery of democracy, remarked a cross-section of voters .

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) with 12 seats bagged the maximum number of seats, followed by the BJP (8) and the Congress (1).

In the last assembly election, held simultaneously with the general election in 2019, the BJD had won 113 of the 147 seats. The BJP stood at distant second with 23 seats, followed by the Congress with 9. The CPM won one seat and another was bagged by an Independent.