Odisha Elections 2024: BJD Appoints 5 Senior Leaders As Lok Sabha Coordinators

Bhubaneswar: The BJD on Sunday appointed five senior leaders, including 3 Rajya Sabha members, as Lok Sabha coordinators.

The parliamentary constituency coordinators are Chandrasekhar Sahu (Berhampur), Debashish Samantaray (Bhadark), Pratap Jena (Kendrapada), Sujit Kumar (Kalahandi) and Subash Khuntia (Puri).

While Sujit Kumar has been representing Odisha in Rajya Sabha since 2000, Khuntia and Samantaray were sworn in as members of the Upper House recently. Jena is a two-time MLA from Mahanga Assembly seat under Kendrapada Lok Sabha constituency. The party has nominated his son Ankit Pratap Jena from Mahanga seat with the senior Jena grabbing headlines for his alleged complicity in a double-murder case.

Former Congress MLA Anshuman Mohanty is the MP candidate from Kendrapada. He is pitted against two-time MP and BJP candidate Baijayant Jay Panda, who had failed to retain the seat in 2019 having lost to BJD’s Anubhav Mohanty by a margin of 1,52,584 votes.

While the BJD has renominated Manjulata Mandal from Bhadrak, Malvika Keshari Deo, wife of the scion of erstwhile Kalahandi royal family and former Kalahandi MP Arka Keshari Deo, had replaced sitting MP Basanta Panda from Kalahandi. Former Mumbai police commissioner Arup Patnaik has been fielded from Puri, which the party has been winning for last six elections. Arup, who joined the BJD in April 2018, currently heads the party’s social welfare wing, Odisha-Mo Parivar.

He will take on BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra.

Chandrasekhar Sahu, who is the sitting Berhampur MP, too has been dropped and replaced with new entrant from BJP, Bhrugu Baxipatra, from the seat. Bhrugu is pitted against BJP’s Pradeep Panigrahi. A close aide of CM Naveen Patnaik, the sitting Gopalpur MLA was expelled from BJD in 2020. He joined the saffron camp in February.