Biju Janata Dal MP Mamata Mohanta on Wednesday resigned from the Rajya Sabha as well as from her party.

Mohanta, a prominent leader from the Kudumi community in Odisha, resigned as an MP two years before her tenure ended.

“I feel that there is no requirement of the services of myself as well as my community in the Biju Janata Dal,” she said in a letter to party chief Naveen Patnaik. “Therefore, I have taken this hard decision in public interest.”

With Mohanta’s resignation, the Opposition party’s strength in the Rajya Sabha has come down to eight.

The development comes over a month after the Biju Janata Dal was defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Odisha Assembly polls.

The BJP won 78 out of Odisha’s 147 Assembly seats. The Biju Janata Dal, which was in power in the state since March 2000, got 51 seats. The Congress won 14 seats.

On June 24, Patnaik had said that it would no longer give issue-based support to the BJP and would instead act as a “vibrant and strong” opposition in the Rajya Sabha. The Biju Janata Dal did not win any seat in this year’s Lok Sabha election.