Odisha: Biju Janata Dal (BJD) declares fresh list of candidates for Lok Sabha polls and Assembly seats

Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Thursday announced the fresh list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and Assembly elections.

BJD president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in a video message declared the names of nominees for one Lok Sabha and nine Assembly constituencies.

The party has nominated ex-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lekhashri Samant-singhar from Balasore Parliamentary constituency.

The former firebrand women leader had joined the ruling BJD on April 7, hours after resigning from the primary membership of BJP.

With the announcement of Samantsinghar's candidature for the Balasore constituency on Thursday, the party has announced candidates for all the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

She will fight her maiden electoral battle against former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Pratap Chandra Sarangi as the principal opponent in the Balasore Parliamentary constituency. The BJD also declared its candidates for nine state Assembly constituencies in the state.

The party has renominated five sitting MLAs while it fielded new faces in the four As-sembly seats. The party has renominated Braja Kishore Pradhan from Talcher Assembly segment in Dhenkanal Lok Sabha constituency, Ananta Narayan Jena for Bhubaneswar central Assembly seat, Rohit Pujari on Rairkhol Vidhan Sabha seat in Sambalpur district, Prabhu Jani from Laxmipur Assembly segment in Koraput Lok Sabha constituency and Chakramani Kanhar on Baliguda Assembly seat in Kandhamal district.

Meanwhile, veteran leader Prasanna Acharya has been nominated for Sambalpur As-sembly seat, while the party fielded Giitanjali Routray in Paradeep assembly seat, this time replacing her husband and the sitting Paradeep MLA Sambit Routray.

The BJD has named Manorama Mohanty in Narla constituency in Kalahandi district, replacing Bhupinder Singh.

Similarly, Madhab Sardar has been fielded as the candidate for Telkoi Assembly seg-ment in Keonjhar Lok Sabha constituency in place of defector Premananda Nayak who recently joined BJP after quitting BJD.

Nayak, the sitting Telkoi MLA along with BJP leader Arabinda Dhali have been disqualified by the Speaker Pramila Mallik from the state assembly on the ground of defection on April 10.

The BJD is yet to declare candidates for 30 more constituencies out of the 147 Assem-bly seats in the state. (IANS)

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