Odisha Assembly Elections: BJD drops 5 MLAs, replaces 2 with wives in 7th list

Bhubaneswar: BJD president Naveen Patnaik on Monday announced candidates for another six Assembly seats in Odisha.

The party has fielded sitting Dhenkanal MP Mahesh Sahoo from Hindol, Archanarekha Behera from Raghunathpali, Sarada Prasanna Jena from Balikuda-Ersama, Ranjita Marndi from Bangiriposi and Biswaranjan Mallick from Bari. Sitting MLA Tusharkanti Behera has been renominated from Kakatpur.

The party has dropped five sitting MLAs from the list- Sudam Marndi (Bangiriposi), Subrat Tarai (Raghunathpali), Seemarani Nayak (Hindol), Raghunandan Das (Balikuda-Ersama) and Sunanda Das (Bari).

In Bangiriposi, the BJD has replaced Sudam Marndi, whom the party earlier nominated from Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha seat, with his wife Ranjita Marndi. Similarly, Archanarekha is the wife of the sitting Raghunathpali MLA Subrat Tarai.

Sarada Prasanna Jena, who unsuccessfully contested 2014 elections from Balikuda-Ersama as independent, had switched sides from Congress to BJD in April 2019. Biswaranjan Mallick had quit the BJP and joined the regional party in 2021 after losing the 2019 election to sitting MLA Sunanda Das by a slender margin of 4,062 votes.

Mallick had earlier proved his political mettle in 2014 election when he took on four-time MLA from Bari and former minister Debasis Nayak, who switched sides from BJD to BJP this February, as an Independent candidate and garnered 52,627 (39.11 per cent) votes against 59,800 (44.44 per cent) votes of the MLA.

With this, the regional party has announced candidates for 141 of 147 Assembly seats and all 21 Lok Sabha segments. Khandapada, Begunia, Khurda, Bhograi, Nilagiri and Korei are the remaining six seats from where it is yet to announce its MLA candidates.