The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) announced party candidates for six more Assembly seats on Monday, denying party tickets to four sitting MLAs while introducing five new faces to the fray.
BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik announced candidates for Hindol, Raghunathpalli, Balikuda Erasama, Kakatpur, Bangriposi, and Bari assembly seats in the seventh phase.
With this announcement, the ruling BJD has so far announced candidates for 141 Assembly seats and 21 Lok Sabha seats, leaving only six more assembly seats to be announced.
Among the new faces, two are spouses of sitting MLAs. They are Ranjita Marandi for the Bangriposi Assembly seat and Archana Behera for the Raghunathpalli assembly seat.
Ranjita is the wife of Odisha School Mass Education, Revenue, and Disaster Minister Sudam Marandi, who has been nominated to contest the Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha seat, while Archana is the wife of Raghunathpalli sitting MLA Subrat Tarai.
The party’s Dhenkanal MP, Mahesh Sahoo, who was dropped from the Lok Sabha seat, has been nominated for the Hindol Assembly seat, replacing the sitting MLA Seemarani Nayak.
The only sitting MLA renominated by the BJD in the seventh phase is Minister of State for Electronics, IT, Sports and Youth Services, and Home Tusharkanti Behera from the Kakatpur Assembly seat.
The party has dropped four sitting MLAs – Subrat Tarai (Raghunathpali), Seemarani Nayak (Hindol), Raghunandan Das (Balikuda-Erasama), and Sunanda Das (Bari).
