Odisha LS Polls: BJP Announces Candidates For Cuttack, Jajpur & Kandhamal Seats

Bhubaneswar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released its second list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections in Odisha.

The BJP, in a press release on the day, said its Central election committee has finalised the names of candidates for the Lok Sabha seats of Cuttack, Kandhamal and Jajpur.

As per the list, the saffron party has nominated Bhartruhari Mahtab for Cuttack, Sukanta Kumar Panigrahi for Kandhamal and Rabindra Narayan Behera for Jajpur parliamentary constituency.

It may be noted that Mahtab, who has been elected from Cuttack six times since 1998, resigned from BJD soon after BJP’s Odisha president Manmohan Samal confirmed that the saffron party would fight the upcoming elections in the state alone on March 22. He along with MP-actor Sidhant Mohapatra and noted Shantali writer Damayanti Beshra joined the BJP on March 28.

Panigrahy was BJP candidate from Kandhamal in 2014 and he had finished third in the election. He will take on BJD’s sitting MP Achyuta Samanta this time.

In Jajpur, the BJP decided in favour of Rabinarayan Behera, former director of National Informatics Centre, Odisha after its nominee for the last two elections, Amiya Kanta Mallick, failed to beat the BJD.

But Mallick has been able to increase the party’s vote share from 15.37% in 2014 to 40.5% in 2019. He was reportedly not keen on the Parliamentary seat and instead wanted to contest from Binjharpur Assembly seat.

The BJP had earlier released its list of candidates for 18 Lok Sabha seats for the ensuing dual elections in the state. Odisha has 21 Parliamentary constituencies.