Odisha Elections: BJD Begins Ticket Selection Exercise With Puri; How Is The Party Poised?

Bhubaneswar: Amid the ongoing suspense over alliance with BJP in Odisha, ticket selection exercise in BJD for upcoming  Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections began with a meeting with leaders of Puri district here at 11 am on Monday.

According to sources, legislators of the party from Puri – Arun Sahu, Rudra Maharathy, Uma Samantaray, and Satyanarayana Pradhan – along with Rajya Sabha member Subhashis Khuntia arrived at Naveen Nivas, the residence of party president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar, this morning.

BJD Organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das, Puri observer and Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain and former Bramhagiri MLA Sanjay Das Burma were also present.

Puri Parliamentary constituency was reportedly one of the bone of contention in the alliance talks between BJP and BJD. Neither of the parties was keen to lose this Lok Sabha seat, considering the high stakes surrounding Shree Jagannath Temple and their strong organisation. Currently, BJD’s Pinaki Mishra is Puri MP. In 2019, he defeated BJP’s Sambit Patra, who is a national spokesperson of his party, by a close margin of less than 12,000 votes. While Pinaki is reportedly reluctant to contest this time and has not been very active in the area, Sambit seems keen to enter the electoral fray again and has been touring the constituency regularly. Prior to alliance talks, speculation abounded that former IPS officer and BJD leader Arup Patnaik would contest for Puri Lok Sabha in case Pinaki dropped out.

The BJD had MLAs in five of the seven Assembly seats under this Parliamentary constituency after the 2019 elections. However, the sitting Chilika MLA Prasanta Jagadev, who was expelled from the regional party in 2022, recently joined the saffron brigade.

Last month, a controversy also erupted after a video featuring Sanjay Das Burma, allegedly claiming to have been chosen to contest from Satyabadi assembly seat, went viral, prompting the party to hold a meeting with him and Umakanta Samantray, the current MLA of the constituency. Two-time MLA Das Burma lost his Bramhagiri seat in 2019 elections to BJP’s Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, who is the brother of Congress strongman and three-time MLA Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, who died in 2016.

The BJD, which had never won in Satyabadi, secured the seat for the first time following Samantray’s victory in 2019 when he joined the party. Samantray had won the seat as an independent in 2014 elections.

The regional party was also able to retain the Pipili seat with Rudra Pratap Maharathy winning the 2021 bypoll by a bigger margin than his father, Pradeep Maharathy, had in the 2019 elections. However, his rival Ashrit Pattanayak of BJP can give him tough contest this time around.

The four-time MLA Arun Sahoo may also face a stiff challenge in Nayagarh Assembly constituency from BJP’s Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh, popularly known as ‘Rani Maa Nayagarh’ on the strength of the organisation built by her late husband and former Kandhamal MP Hemendra Chandra Singh, who left Congress and joined BJD in February 2014.

So is the case with BJD’s Satyanarayan Pradhan, who won the 2019 elections by a slender margin of 4,251, with Surama Padhy of BJP seems belligerent to avenge her previous defeats to the regional party.

Khuntia was reportedly one of the contender for Puri Sadar seat being held by BJP’s Jayanat Sarangi. His candidature to Rajya Sabha was seen as a smart manoeuvre by the BJD to prevent any dissidence in the party ahead of the polls with former MLA Maheswar Mohanty’s son Sunil as the frontrunner for the party ticket. The BJD is hoping to wrest back the seat from the saffron party by cashing in on the sympathy wave created by Maheswar’s death, sources said.