24 Odisha MLAs Receive Best Legislator Award

Bhubaneswar: The Best Legislator Award was conferred on 24 Odisha MLAs in three different categories, for following the parliamentary norms and maintaining discipline in the House, during a function here on Friday.

Addressing the gathering, the Chief Minister said, “I am glad that Odisha Legislative Assembly has maintained the high tradition of honouring distinguished legislators for their contribution to enrich our parliamentary democracy.”

Legislators discharge their responsibilities of fulfilling the aspirations of the people and ventilate their grievances through participating in the debate and enactment of the law, he said.

The Chief Minister and Speaker Pradip Amat presented the awards to the best legislators for 2009 to 2016 in three different categories — Pandit Nilakantha Samman, Utkalmani Gopabandhu Samman and Utkal Gourab Madhusudan Samman. The awardees were chosen by the Odisha Legislative Assembly (OLA) selection committee.

Pandit Nilakantha Best Legislator Award was conferred on Bishnu Charan Das for the year 2009, Arun Kumar Sahoo (2010), Pravat Ranjan Biswal (2011), Prafulla Majhi (2012), Amar Prasad Satpathy (2013), Pramila Mallick (2014), Ranendra Pratap Swain (2015) and Dr Ramesh Chandra Chyau Patnaik for the year 2016.

The Utkal Gourab Madhusudan Samman was conferred on Surendra Nath Naik (2009), Bimbadhar Kuanr (2010), Nityananda Pradhan (2011), Umesh Chandra Swain (2012), Bikram Keshari Barma (2013), Rajendra Dholakia (2014), Surendra Prasad Pramanik (2015) and Chakradhar Paik (2016).

As many as eight MLAs were presented the Utkalmani Gopabandhu Samman. They are Sanjay Dasburma for 2009, Pritiranjan Gharai (2010), Samir Ranjan Dash (2011), Prashant Kumar Muduli (2012), Bijay Kumar Mohanty (2013), Dr. Raseswari Panigrahi (2014), Captain Dibya Shankar Mishra (2015) and Pradip Purohit for 2016.

The Chief Minister congratulated the awardees and said it will encourage them to work with even more dedication for healthy growth of our democracy.