Bhubaneswar: Jyoti Panigrahi, former Chairperson of Odisha State Commission for Women, and her husband Saroj Kumar Panigrahi, ex-Chairperson of Odisha State Cashew Development Corporation, joined the BJP, today. The couple had resigned from the BJD on April 11.

The two joined the BJP at party headquarters here in the presence of senior leaders Samir Mohanty and Basant Panda.

Jyoti, who was the Vice-President of Biju Janata Mahila Dal, had ended her 30-year-old association with the BJD citing that there was no access to the party's supremo.

“Biju Janata Dal, which was known for its unity and democratic approach for party’s strategy to serve the people of Odisha is more the same. The current asymmetry within the party and the forced loneliness in the chaos where decisions are made in silos with absolutely no access to the party supreme leadership has put me to this compulsion to leave the party,” she had mentioned in the resignation letter.