Bhubaneswar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections in Odisha on Sunday evening.
The BJP has repeated its candidates in several constituencies while announcing the nominees for 18 out of total 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
While Aparajita Sarangi has been renominated by the BJP for prestigious Bhubaneswar seat, the Central Election Committee (CEC) of the party has not announced the candidate for Cuttack. The CEC had held a meeting for over three hours on Saturday to discuss the aspirants for all constituencies.
Contrary to speculations, President Droupadi Murmu’s daughter Itishree Murmu has not been selected for Mayurbhanj seat which has gone to Naba Charan Majhi. The party has dropped Union Minister Bishweswar Tudu, who was elected from the constituency reserved for scheduled tribe in 2019.
On the other hand, the former minister and present MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi has been renominated by the party for Balasore LS seat while Abhimanyu Sethi has been allotted ticket for Bhadrak.
The national spokesperson of the party, Sambit Patra, has also been nominated for Puri for the second consecutive time.
As expected, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be the BJP candidate for Sambalpur and Jual Oram will continue to contest from Sundargarh. The party’s national vice-president Baijayant Panda has been declared the party’s candidate for Kendrapada constituency.
Similarly, new entrant to the party, Pradeep Panigrahi has been given party ticket for Berhampur seat and Anita Subhadarshini will contest from Aska constituency in Ganjam district.
Four sitting MPs dropped:
Paradip Purohit replaces Suresh Pujari in Bargarh
Dharmendra Pradhan replaces Nitish Gangdeb in Sambalpur
Malvika Keshari Deo replaces Basant Panda in Kalahandi
Nabacharan Majhi replaces Bisweshwar Tudu in Mayurbhanj
According to sources, the BJP may field the sitting MPs to contest in Assembly elections.
Following is the list of candidates released by the BJP:
