Eye On Panchayat Polls, BJD Rejigs Dist Observers With Mix Of New & Old

Bhubaneswar: After declaring the names of district observers, BJD president Naveen Patnaik on Saturday appointed six party leaders as senior observers.

They are Bikram Keshari Arukh, Debi Prasad Mishra, Niranjan Pujari, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Prasanna Acharya and Maheswar Mohanty.

This is being seen as an attempt by the BJD to galvanise the party apparatus ahead of the three-tier panchayat polls slated next year.

Arukh and Mohanty were earlier entrusted with the responsibility of Kandhamal and Ganjam respectively as district observers. Acharya was in charge of Khurda and Pujari of Angul.

In the present arrangement, Mishra has been assigned the role of senior observer for Ganjam, Nayagarh, Kandhamal, Puri, Khurda and Boudh. Patnaik will be in charge of Angul along with six other districts.

Here’s the complete list.

The party has assigned the responsibility of district observers to key leaders in districts, where BJD lost the MP seats in 2019. Pratap Deb (Balasore), Naba Kishore Das (Kalahandi), Pranab Prakash Das (Mayurbhanj), Pritiranjan Ghadei (Sundargarh), Sudhir Samal (Bargarh), Sushanta Singh (Balangir) and Nalini Pradhan (Sambalpur). Two women leaders – Pramilla Malik and Usha Devi – will be in charge of Khurda and Cuttack respectively.