The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) released the list of 112 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Odisha on Tuesday, April 2. Assembly elections in Odisha will be held in four phases on May 13, 20, 25 and June 1. Nomination filing dates vary per phase, with the last phase having nominations until May 14 and withdrawal by May 17.
Saffron party re-nominated 21 of its 22 sitting MLAs in the state while announcing the list of candidates for 112 of the 147 Assembly constituencies. The lone legislator who was denied the BJP ticket was Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra from Brahmagiri in Puri district. Mohapatra’s niece, Upasana Mohapatra, got the ticket from the Brahmagiri Assembly seat.
There are eight women candidates. As per the list, BJP state president Manmohan Samal will contest from the Chandbali assembly segment in Bhadrak district, while senior party leader and sitting MP from Bargarh Suresh Pujari will contest from Brajarajnagar Assembly seat. Pujari was denied the party ticket for contesting the Lok Sabha polls this time. Leader of Opposition and MLA Jaynarayan Mishra will contest from his traditional Sambalpur assembly seat.
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Three BJD turncoats, Arabinda Dhali, Akash Das Nayak, and Priyadarshi Mishra, were given BJP tickets. Arabinda Dhali will fight from the Jayadev assembly segment in the Khurda district.
While actor-turned-politician Akash Das Nayak has been given the ticket for the Korei Assembly segment in the Jajpur district, former BJD MLA Priyadarshi Mishra will fight the polls from the Bhubaneswar North seat.
While the saffron party’s youth leader Tankadhar Tripathy will contest the Assembly polls from Jharsuguda, MLA Kusum Tete will contest from the Sundargarh Assembly seat and Biswaranjan Badajena from Jatni. Jagannath Pradhan has been fielded from Bhubaneswar Central, Babu Singh from Bhubaneswar Ekamra, and Prithiviraj Harichandan from the Chilika Assembly seat.
"I have worked for the party organisation for the past 15 years. We will raise the many issues being faced by the people in the villages in this election," said Sudhir Patjoshi, BJP MLA candidate from Dharamgarh constituency.
The assembly poll results will be announced on June 1st, along with the Lok Sabha polls. The Election Commission announced the dates for the assembly elections in Odisha on March 16, 2024.
In the 2019 elections, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) secured a comfortable victory with 112 out of 147 seats, while BJP and Congress managed to secure 23 and nine seats respectively.
The Odisha Assembly has 147 seats. A party needs at least 74 seats to form the government. The tenure of the Odisha Legislative Assembly is scheduled to end on 24 June 2024. Patnaik has been at the helm of the state since 2000. The BJP and the BJD were in talks for an alliance but the negotiations fell through over seat-sharing arrangement.