BJD Candidates Fourth List Released, BJP Turncoat Lekhashree Fielded From Balasore LS Seat
Odisha’s ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Thursday came out with its fourth phase of list of candidates for remaining assembly and Lok Sabha seats in the state. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced the names of nine assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat in the evening.
Lekhashree Samantasinghar, who recently quit the BJP and joined BJD, was named as the MP candidate for the Balasore Lok Sabha seat. She will fight the poll against BJP stalwart and sitting MP Pratap Sarangi.
However, the BJD dropped its sitting MLA for the Narla seat, Bhupinder Singh and played the woman card by fielding Manorama Mohanty to counter Congress stalwart and former Union Minister Bhakta Das.
With this, the ruling BJD has so far cleared 117 names for assembly polls and 21 candidates for Lok Sabha elections.
While the ruling party repeated candidates in five assembly seats, sitting MLAs were dropped in four seats.
BJD Balasore Lok Sabha candidate Lekhashree Samantasinghar said, “I thank Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and party's organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das for reposing faith in me to fight against the BJP and Congress. The CM has a vision, plan and strategy for the development of the state as well as the Balasore Lok Sabha Constituency. I will reach out to every household to see that the CM vision for sustainable development of the state is achieved.”
She added that the party has its own organisation in Balasore and she is one of the workers, and the party has worked out a strategy which will yield remarkable results.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has declared its candidates for all the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state. In its first list of assembly candidates, it has cleared 112 names.
The Indian National Congress, the second main opposition in the state, in its first phase of list has cleared 49 names of assembly elections and six names for Lok Sabha polls.
Odisha, which has got 21 Lok Sabha and 147 assembly seats, will go to the polls simultaneously in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1
Here is the complete list of candidates for the assembly seats
Bhubaneswar-Central Ananta Narayan Jena
Baliguda: Chakramani Kanhar
Laxmipur: Prabhu Jani
Paradip: Gitanjali Routray
Sambalpur: Prasanna Acharya
Rairakhol: Rohit Pujari
Telkoi: Madhab Sardar
Talcher: Braja Pradhan
Narla: Manorama Mohanty