Bhubaneswar: The Governing Biju Janata Dal (BJD) President and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today announced candidates for nine Assembly seats and Balasore MP segment.
The BJD has nominated Lekhashri Samantsinghar for the Balasore MP seat. With her nomination, the party has announced candidates for all 21 MP seats in Odisha and the party nominated 33% women (seven) candidates.
The party has dropped two sitting MLAs, Sambit Routray (Paradip) and Bhupinder Singh (Narla). In place of Sambit Routray, the party has nominated his wife Gitanjali while a new woman face, Manorama Mohanty, has been named for the Narla MLA seat. Notably, senior Congress leader Bhakta Das is contesting from the Narla seat.
The governing party has picked veteran leader Prasanna Acharya for the prestigious Sambalpur MLA seat. This MLA seat is very important for the BJD as it will be the fight against Leader of Opposition Jaynarayan Mishra. Besides, BJP veteran Dharmendra Pradhan and BJD Organisational Secretary Pranab Prakash Das are also contesting from Sambalpur MP seat.
Following the resignation of sitting MLA Premananda Nayak, the BJD has nominated Madhab Sardar for Telkoi MLA seat in Keonjhar district. Sardar lost the last election from Keonjhar seat with a minimal margin to BJP MLA Mohan Majhi.
The party has re-nominated five sitting MLAs, they are– Prabhu Jani (Laxmipur), Rohit Pujari (Rairakhole), Braja Pradhan (Talcher), Chakramani Kanhar (Baliguda) and Ananta Naryan Jena (Bhubaneswar-Central).
So far, the BJD has announced its candidates for 117 MLA seats against the total seats of 147.