Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Thursday announced its candidates for the remaining three Assembly seats and changed one previously-declared MLA nominee.
Chief Minister and BJD president Naveeen Patnaik named Sabitri Pradhan for Khandapada, Sukanta Nayak for Nilagiri and Sandhyarani Das for Korei.
Sandhyarani Das is the mother of BJD organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das, who is the party MP candidate from Sambalpur. She has been nominated by dropping incumbent MLA Ashok Kumar Bal, in what is being seen as a back-up plan for Pranab if he fails to win from Sambalpur LS seat, where he is pitted against Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan of the BJP.
Sandhyarani is the wife of Ashok Das, a heavyweight politician with a strong influence in Korei having been elected from the seat five times.
Similarly, Sabitri, who is Bhapur block chairperson, earned the nomination with the BJD having expelled the sitting MLA, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, from the party. On April 30, Soumya had hinted that he may contest from Ghasipura Assembly constituency of Keonjhar district on a BJP ticket.
Sukanta Nayak had won the Nilagiri seat twice in 2014 and 2019. He won the 2014 elections as a BJD candidate but contested the last election on BJP ticket. He returned to the Conch fold on March 31.
The BJD also changed the candidate in Deogarh Assembly seat, which is part of Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat. Romanch Ranjan Biswal has replaced Bamanda ‘Rani’ Arundhati Devi, who is the wife of erstwhile Deogarh king and BJP’s Sambalpur MP Nitesh Ganga Dev. Biswal had contested in 2019 from Deogarh but lost to BJP’s Subash Chandra Panigrahi by a margin of 7,106 votes.
This came amid reports that Nitesh Ganga Dev had quit BJP, which he later rebutted and added that he was ready to campaign for the BJP candidate in Deogarh. There was also local resistance against Arundhati and Pranab was unable to penetrate Deogarh, where Dharmendra and BJP MLA candidate Subash Chandra Panigrahi have a stronghold.
