Bhubaneswar: Two queens, a princess and wives of a couple of top leaders of Odisha’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Wednesday made their cut into the fifth phase list of the party’s assembly candidates.
The regional party fielded Bamanda queen Arundhati Devi from Deogarh seat while Sanjukta Singh, wife of Odisha Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Rajanikant Singh was nominated to fight from Angul.
Rajanikant is the scion of the Angul royal family.
Sulakshana Geetanjali Devi, the princess of Dharakote, was declared as the candidate for Sana-Khemundi in Ganjam district.
Apart from giving ticket to the Deputy Speaker’s wife, the BJD gave ticket to Indira Nanda, wife of party’s senior leader and former minister Rabi Nanda, for Jeypore seat.
The fifth phase list also included the name of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as the candidate for Kantabanji seat. This is the second assembly segment the CM will be contesting.
In the first list, the CM’s name figured as the candidate for the Hinjili assembly constituency in Ganjam district.
In 2019, Naveen had also contested from two seats – Hinjli and Bijepur in Baragarh district. He retained the Hinjli seat and resigned from Bijepur.
Naveen’s name found place in the fifth list of nine candidates for assembly elections in Odisha.
The party dropped three sitting MLAs - Samir Ranjan Singh of Nimapara, Kishore Chandra Naik of Kuchinda and Purnachandra Baka of Chitrakonda and replaced them respectively by Dillip Nayak. Rajendra Chhatria, respectively.
The party swapped candidates in two assembly segments – Samablpur and Rairakhol. Prasanna Acharya, who was earlier declared to contest from Sambalpur, will now fight from Rairakhol. Similarly, Rohit Pujari, who was fielded from Rairakhol, was shifted to Sambalpur.
Here is the list of BJD candidates:
Laxmipriya Nayak- Chitrakonda
Naveen Patnaik- Kantabanji
Barsha Singh Bariha- Padampur
Kuchinda-Rajendra Kumar Chhatria
Arundhati Kumari Devi -Deogarh
Sanjukta Singh- Angul
Dilip Nayak- Nimapada
Sulakshana Geetanjali Devi-Sanakhemundi
Indira Nanda-Jeypore
Swapped seats
Rohit Pujari-Sambalpur
Prasanna Acharya- Rairakhol
