Odisha Assembly Gets Its 2nd Woman Speaker As Surama Padhy Elected Unopposed

Bhubaneswar: Surama Padhy, a two-time BJP MLA from Ranpur, was unanimously elected as Speaker of Odisha Legislative Assembly on Thursday.

She is the second woman to hold the coveted after Pramila Mallick.

Surama had filed her nomination for the post on Wednesday and was elected unopposed as no other political party fielded candidate against her. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had spoken to BJD president Naveen Patnaik and sought his support for her. “Nobody else has filed nomination from any other party. Naveen has conveyed his party’s support for Surama,”  Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Mahaling had said.

The BJP has a clear majority in the House with 78 MLAs and the support of three Independents. The BJD has 51 and the Congress has 14 MLAs and both their numbers also does not add up to ensure victory of the Opposition candidate.

After three successive defeats, Surama emerged as winning from Ranpur Assembly seat in the recently-concluded elections. She defeated Satyanarayan Pradhan of Biju Janata Dal by a margin of 15,544 votes. The 63-year-old has last won the seat in 2004 when she also served as the Cooperation Minister in the Naveen Patnaik-led BJP-BJP alliance government. She also served as the national president of BJP Mahila Morcha from 2000 to 2002 and chief of the Morcha’s state unit from 1998 to 2000.

She is a native of Ranpur and completed her Master of Arts in 1982 from the erstwhile Ravenshaw College.

In September 2023, senior BJD leader Pramila created history by becoming the first woman speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly. She too was elected unopposed.