Odisha's ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Wednesday announced the names of 27 candidates for upcoming Assembly elections and five for Lok Sabha polls. With this, the BJD has fielded 20 candidates for the 21 Lok Sabha seats, barring Balasore. The party fielded former BJP leaders Bhrugu Baxipatra and Parineeta Mishra from Berhampur and Baragarh Lok Sabha seats, hours after they joined the regional outfit.
Barring Baxipatra and Mishra, the three Lok Sabha candidates declared are Surendra Singh Bhoi (Bolangir), Manjulata Mandal (Bhadrak) and Dhanurjay Siddu (Keojhar). The party has also dropped two sitting MPs - Chandrani Murmu (Keonjhar) and Chandrasekhar Sahu (Berhampur). Of the five Lok Sabha candidates, only Mandal was renominated while the remaining are new. While Mishra and Baxipatra joined the party during the day, Singh Bhoi had resigned from Congress and joined the BJD last week.
7 sitting MLAs denied tickets
The party has also so far announced nominees for 99 assembly seats out of 147. Patnaik has denied tickets to seven sitting MLAs as they have been replaced by new aspirants. The sitting MLAs who were denied re-nomination are Parsuram Dhada (Soro), Ramesh Chandra Sai (Athamallik), Angad Kanhar (Phulbani), Bijay Shankar Das (Tirtol), Pritam Padhi (Pottangi), Pratap Jena (Mahanga) and Rajkishore Das (Moroda).
While Pratap Jena of Mahanga has been replaced by his son Ankit, Morada MLA Rajkishore Das’s wife Preetinanda Kanungo was nominated by the party. Meanwhile, Soro MLA Parsuram Dhada, within hours of being denied re-nomination, resigned from BJD. "I resigned from the party with a heavy heart," he wrote to Patnaik. Former Phulbani MLA Debendra Kanhar, who was elected in 2009, also resigned from the party without revealing the reason.
Seven women candidates for Assembly polls
The 27-member list released for the assembly elections included seven women candidates. They are Anusaya Patra (Badasahi), Preetinanda Kanungo (Morada), Alaka Mohanty (Brajrajnagar), Depali Das (Jharsuguda), Jayashree Kanhar (Phulbani), Suryamani Vaidya (Khalikote) and Majula Swain Aska.
The ruling party had announced its first list of candidates for nine Lok Sabha seats and 72 assembly seats on March 27. The party released the second list of six more candidates for Lok Sabha polls the same day.
(With PTI inputs)
