Odisha Polls: BJD Releases 3rd List Of Candidates For Assembly Seats

Bhubaneswar: The BJD on Friday released its fourth list of candidates and third list for Assembly elections in Odisha.

Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik, in a video message, announced the names of party candidates for different seats and sought people’s support in the elections.

Two prominent Assembly constituencies for which the BJD nominated its candidates are Rourkela and Barabati-Cuttack. The party has fielded Sarada Nayak for Rourkela and Prakash Behera for Barabati-Cuttck. Behera, a former Cuttack district unit of BJP, had joined BJD on April 3. He is a former MLA from Salepur.

Following is the list of other BJD candidates for different constituencies:

Rengali: Sudarshan Haripal
Birmitrapur: Rohit Joseph Tirkey
Keonjhar: Meena Majhi
Rairangpur: Raisin Murmu
Balasore: Swarup Das
Salepur: Prasant Behera
Jaydev: Naba Kishore Mallik

Rohit Tirkey, who had contested from Birmitrapur on Congress ticket in 2019 elections, had joined BJD on April 3.

While the ruling party in the state has dropped sitting Rengali MLA Reena Tanty, it has renominated the MLAs from Balasore and Salepur.

Sitting Jaydev MLA Arabinda Dhali had quit BJD last month and will be contesting the elections from the same seat on BJP ticket.

The BJD announced 72 MLA candidates in its first list on March 27 and 27 more in the second list on April 3. The party has already announced its nominees for 20 out of total 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.