BJD Rejigs District Observers As It Readies For 2024 Polls; Pranab Das Gets Most Dists

Bhubaneswar: With an eye on the 2024 elections, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Monday appointed new observers for all 30 districts in Odisha.

“In supersession of all the previous orders, the following BJD leaders have been appointed as district observers,” an office order said. Check the list here:

Pranab Prakash Das, who is BJD general secretary (organization), got the highest districts as observer. Most importantly he will try to strengthen BJD in Angul and Dhenkanal from where Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is likely to contest elections in 2024. He will also handle Sambalpur represented by LoP Jayanarayan Mishra, who has of late been firing salvo after salvo against the Naveen Patnaik dispensation.

It is also being speculated that Dharmendra might consider Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency (currently represented by BJP’s Nitesh Gangadev) as an option if he feels that it is ‘safer’ than the Dhenkanal LS seat. He was Deogarh MP from 2004 to 2009.

Pranab Prakash, considered a key person in BJD with experience of managing the party organisation, will also be observer for Keonjhar district, which is rich in minerals and hence considered important from the point of resource mobilisation.

While Pranab got four districts, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak and Dibya Shankar Mishra will be responsible for two districts each while others have been assigned one each.

Senior leaders Tukuni Sahu, Usha Devi and Rohit Pujari, who featured in the observers’ list released in October last year, have been dropped. Amaresh Jena (Deogarh), Rabindra Kumar Jena (Khurda) and Debesh Acharya (Sonepur) are the new entrants.