BJD rewards Bhrugu Baxipatra with Berhampur LS, announces names for 27 assembly seats

Bhubaneswar: The BJD on Wednesday announced Bhrugu Baxipatra as its candidate from Berhampur Lok Sabha seat, hours after he snapped his 23-year-old ties with BJP and joined the Naveen Patnaik-led party. Naveen Patnaik in a video message announced third list of candidates for five Lok Sabha seats and the second list of 27 candidates for Assembly polls.

LS Constituencies & Nominees:

Berhampur: Bhrugu Baxipatra
Balangir: Surendra Singh Bhoi
Bhadrak: Manjulata Mandal
Bargarh: Parineeta Mishra
Keonjhar: Dhanurjay Siddu

While the BJD has renominated sitting Bhadrak MP Manjulata, Chandrasekhar Sahu (Berhampur) and Chandrani Murmu (Keonjhar) have been dropped.

Bhoi, a three-time Congress MLA and former Minister, resigned from the primary membership of the party after 38 years and joined the ruling BJD on March 29. He was elected MLA from Saintala twice in 1995 and 2000 and from Titilagarh in 2009 on a Congress ticket. He has replaced Kalikesh Singhdeo, who had unsuccessfully contested from the parliamentary constituency in 2019 after winning the seat in 2014. The party has fielded him from Balangir assembly seat this time.

Though there were talks that the regional party might field Prasanna Acharya, who was discharged from hospital on Tuesday after suffering critical injuries in a car crash last month, from Bargarh, the party picked Parineeta Mishra instead. With this, the party has announced candidates for all Lok Sabha seats, except Balasore.

The party has re-nominated several of its sitting legislators. Dipali Das, who had won the by-election to Jharsuguda Assembly constituency held following the murder of his father and the then Health Minister Naba Kishore Das, has been given ticket for the same seat.

Similarly, sitting MLA from Brajarajnagar Alaka Mohanty, who had won the bypoll following the demise of her husband Kishore Mohanty in 2022, has been repeated by the party for the same Assembly constituency.

The ruling BJD had announced the first list of candidates for 9 Lok Sabha seats and 72 Assembly seats on March 27. The regional party released the second list of 6 more candidates for Lok Sabha polls the same day.