June 6th 2024.
Just a few days after the BJD's defeat in the Odisha Assembly elections, pictures and videos of BJD leader VK Pandian started making rounds on social media. In these images, the former IAS officer could be seen on a Vistara flight and walking through an airport with a trolley bag in hand.
One particular photo that went viral on Thursday showed Pandian seated inside a Vistara flight. In another video, he could be seen confidently walking through the airport with his trolley bag.
Despite the widespread circulation of these images, their authenticity has not been verified by OrissaPOST. However, many netizens claimed that Pandian, who is known to be a close confidante of Naveen Patnaik, had left Odisha and flown to New Delhi after the BJD's crushing defeat in the elections.
It is worth mentioning that Pandian's whereabouts were unknown after the results were announced on June 4th. The BJD faced a shocking defeat at the hands of the BJP, who won a majority with 78 Assembly seats, surpassing the magic number of 74 in the 147-member Assembly. In contrast, the BJD only secured 51 seats while the Congress managed to win 14.
In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJD failed to secure a single parliamentary constituency in the state. Prior to the simultaneous elections in Odisha, Pandian had accompanied the party's organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das (nicknamed Bobby Das) to New Delhi amid speculations of a possible BJD-BJP alliance. However, these speculations were put to rest after BJD state chief Manmohan Samal clarified that the saffron party would be contesting the elections alone.
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