Bhubaneswar: With the stage set for a high-stakes triangular contest in Nuapada, Biju Janata Party (BJD) president Naveen Patanik on Wednesday constituted three committees with senior leaders to spearhead the party’s campaign for the by-election scheduled for November 11.
The committees include ex-ministers, sitting and former MLAs, one Rajya Sabha member and local functionaries.
Senior leaders like Prasanna Acharya, Niranjan Pujari, Snehangini Chhuria, Tukuni Sahoo, Niranjan Bisi and Md Ayub Khan have been appointed to the 6-member steering committee, which will supervise campaign strategy and coordination between the state and district units.
Similarly, a 10-member zonal committee has been formed to oversee outreach in rural blocks (like Nuapada, Komna, Sinapali, Jonk) and urban clusters (Nuapada and Khariar NACs). The members are Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo (Nuapada NAC), Sarada Nayak (Nuapada NAC), Sudam Marandi, Debesh Acharya, Saroj Meher, Manohar Randhari, Rohit Pujari (Khariar NAC), Pradip Majhi, Jogesh Singh and Bikram Panda (Khariar NAC),
The local action committee, comprising Adhiraj Panigrahi, Abani Joshi and Manoj Mishra, will focus on booth-level planning, voter list verification, and door-to-door campaigns in core Nuapada areas.
“The order will come into force with immediate effect,” it said.
The November 11 bypoll, necessitated by the demise of BJD MLA and former minister Rajendra Dholakia, is a prestige battle for all three major parties in the state. While Congress, which is making efforts to re-establish its influence in the state, has named Ghasiram Majhi as its nominee, the BJP and BJD are still locked in intense deliberations to finalise candidates and craft strategies.
To cash in on the sympathy wave, the BJD may field Joy Dholakia in the by-election, while the BJP is discussing three probables – Abhinandan Panda, Jadumani Panigrahi and Basanta Panda, sources said.
Since 2000, the seat had been represented thrice by the late Dholakia as a BJD legislator and once as an Independent, while former state BJP president Basanta Panda secured two victories.
In the 2024 assembly election, Dholakia of the BJD had secured 61,822 votes, while Congress rebel Ghasiram Majhi, who contested as an Independent, polled 50,941 votes, emerging as a close runner-up. The Congress’s official nominee, Sarat Pattanayak, lagged far behind with 15,501 votes, while the BJP candidate Abhinandan Panda finished third, managing just over 440,814 votes.
