Bhubaneswar: The BJP on Sunday named former MLA of Brajrajnagar Radharani Panda as the party candidate for the bypoll to the Assembly seat in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district. She was a frontrunner for the ticket.
Radharani had defeated BJD candidate Anup Kumar Sai to emerge victorious in 2014 but lost to Kishore Kumar Mohanty of the ruling party by a margin of 11,634 votes in the 2019 Assembly polls.
Notably, Congress has unanimously picked senior party leader and former Speaker Kishore Patel as the party candidate. The BJD, however, is yet to announce its nominee for the seat, which is scheduled to go to polls on May 31. The last date for filing of nomination is May 11. While these will be scrutinized on May 12, the last date for withdrawal of nomination papers is May 17.
The bypoll was necessitated following the death of sitting BJD MLA from Brajrajnagar and former Speaker Kishore Kumar Mohanty on December 30, 2021, due to cardiac arrest.
