By IANS,
Bhubaneswar: Former Lok Sabha MP M.A. Kharavela Swain, who last month quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), floated a new political party called ‘Utkal Bharat’ Monday.
Swain told reporters that he was the “alternative” to Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his would be a regional party with a national perspective.
The bureaucrat-turned-politician was a member of the 12th, 13th and 14th Lok Sabha. He ended his 20-year relationship with the BJP to protest the alleged interference by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in party affairs.
He was also vice president of the state BJP from 1993 to 2000 and president of the youth wing of the party in 1991-93. He was deputy chief whip of the BJP parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha in 2004-09.