Odisha Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Former Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MPs Bhartruhari Mahtab and Sidhant Mohapatra on Thursday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the upcoming general elections.
Bhartruhari Mahtab is one of the founding members of the BJD and a six-time Cuttack Lok Sabha MP.
Mahtab, 67, joined the BJP in the presence of senior leaders at the party headquarters.
Mahtab retained the Cuttack Lok Sabha seat, defeating the BJP's Prakash Mishra with a huge margin of votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He had contested the parliamentary elections on the BJD ticket.
BJD announces new list of six candidates
The ruling BJD has announced candidates for six more Lok Sabha seats.
The party has fielded ex-IPS officer and Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Mohan Patnaik from the Puri Lok Sabha constituency, replacing veteran Supreme Court lawyer and sitting MP Pinaki Mishra.
Patnaik also hails from Puri district.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has nominated its national spokesperson Sambit Patra for the Puri Lok Sabha seat. He had lost to BJD’s Mishra by a small margin in the 2019 elections.
Patnaik, who fought the 2019 elections from the Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency on a BJD ticket, had lost to former IAS officer, Aparajita Sarangi of the BJP.
Meanwhile, Aditya Birla Group's former HR Director, Santrupt Misra, who had recently joined the party after leaving his three-decade-long corporate career, has been fielded from the Cuttack Lok Sabha constituency.
The party was looking for a new face for the seat after the six-time MP from the constituency, Bhartruhari Mahatab quit the party a few days back.
The BJD nominated Abinash Samal, the nephew of senior leader Sudhir Kumar Samal, for the Dhenkanal Lok Sabha constituency, replacing Mahesh Sahoo.
The party had earlier on Wednesday renominated Sudhir Samal for the Dhenkanal Assembly seat.
Similarly, noted educationist Achyutananda Samant, and senior leaders Rajashree Mallick and Sarmistha Sethi have been renominated by the party for the tribal-dominated Kandhamal, Jagatsinghpur, and Jajpur parliamentary constituencies, respectively.
With inputs from IANS
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