Bhubaneswar: The BJP has cleared the air over its MLA candidate for Soro Assembly seat under Bhadrak parliamentary constituency in Odisha.
“We have a parliamentary board, which takes the final decision. The board has now taken a decision and given the ticket to Parshuram Dhada,” informed Odisha election in-charge of the party, Vijaypal Singh Tomar.
The saffron party initially nominated Rajendra Das from the seat, but replaced him with Dhada on May 12. Two more party releases then surfaced, with one dated May 13 declaring Rakesh Kumar Mallik as its candidate and the other dated May 14, putting the stamp on the name of Das again.
Amid this confusion, both Das and Dhada filed their nomination papers on Tuesday, claiming that they had got the green signal from the party.
Also Read: Odisha Elections 2024: Who Is BJP Candidate For Soro Assembly Seat?
In the 2009 elections, Dhada had unsuccessfully contested from Soro Assembly seat on BJP ticket. He then switched over to BJD and was elected to the Odisha Legislative Assembly twice in 2014 and 2019. In the last election, he had defeated Rakesh Malik of BJP by a narrow margin of 4,936 votes.
Dhada, however, returned to the saffron fold in April after the regional fielded Madhab Dhada as its new face from Soro assembly constituency.
Das’ nomination had earlier led to dissent in the local unit and among aspirants of the BJP, who consider him as an ‘outsider’ in Soro. The party office was closed for nearly 12 days after his candidature was initially announced and some party members had even prevented him from campaigning in the Soro area.
A former BJD leader, Das was expelled from the regional party in December 2022 after he contested independently in a by-election to Dhamnagar Assembly seat after being denied a ticket. He ended in the third spot and received just 8,153 votes in the by-poll which was won by BJP candidate Suryabanshi Suraj. He later switched allegiance to the BJP, hoping for a ticket from Dhamnagar constituency but was instead nominated from Soro, only to be dropped later.
