Baijayant panda wife and husband
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‘A whirlwind romance’: BJP leader Jay Panda on how he wooed his would-be wife
On the face of it, Jay Panda’s switch from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made a difference of only one letter of the alphabet: the D of Dal replaced by P of Party. So instead of the BJD to which he owed his allegiance since its inception, it is now the BJP to which he has crossed over. The game of initials has yet another twist: his new party’s initials are similar to his own: Bai-Jayant Panda can be read as the BJP.
Better known as ‘Jay’ Panda, his joining the BJP was on the cards since he parted ways with his long-time family friend and the Odisha Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, last year. That he would bag the post of the BJP’s national vice-president was a bit of a surprise. In fact, the nine-monthlong wait which he called “introspection” was interpreted by his critics as the saffron party giving him short shrift. That over, Jay Panda can sit smug and count his
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The Panda Family
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Baijayant “Jay” Panda, his wife Jagi Mangat Panda and his brother, Subhrakant Panda own more than 96% share in Odisha Television Limited, the company that broadcasts Odisha TV – a news television channel along with a few other channels.
Jay and Jagi Panda are considered the power couple in Odisha. The husband is a founder-member of Biju Janata Dal, the splinter group of the erstwhile Janata Dal, founded by the current Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik. Patnaik and Panda, were once family friends. However, the two drifted apart soon after Patnaik returned as the Chief Minister of the state of Odisha. Patnaik questioned Panda’s industrial interests, and acted on allegations that Panda was spreading about Patnaik’s health and well-being, clearly to weaken him and compromise his position. Also, Panda, leveraging his position as the owner of Odisha’s largest news television channel OTV, was easily seen as cozying up to the Bharatiya Janata Pa
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BJD targeting family, says wife of BJP’s Jay Panda
Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Baijayant Panda and his wife, Jagi Mangat Panda, on Saturday accused the Biju Janata lågland government in Odisha of orchestrating cases against them out of political vendetta even as the BJD refuted the allegations of a witch-hunt.
Alleging that the state government has been targeting their family for speaking out against alleged corruption in the state, Panda’s wife said, “It is no secret that ever since my husband Jay Panda started speaking out about the BJD’s widespread corruption five years ago, and joined the BJP, the Odisha government and BJD have been targeting and harassing our family and the organisations connected with us, including actual violence against us on several locations.”
She said that the Odisha police were filing false cases against them and the companies associated with them. “In the past two months, the Odisha police have registered about 20 false cases against OTV,