After several days of dithering, the Biju Janata Dal on Thursday came out with its next list of candidates for remaining Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in Odisha.
BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced the names of nine Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat on Thursday. While the ruling party has repeated candidates in five Assembly seats, sitting MLAs were dropped in four seats.
Lekhashree Samantasinghar who quit the BJP and joined BJD recently 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.
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
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Lekhashree said, "I thank Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and party's organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das. The Chief Minister 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.”
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.
Paradip candidate Gitanjali Routray, who is the wife of the sitting MLA Sambit Routray said, "I thank Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and 5T chairman VK Pandian for reposing faith in me to fight the poll from Paradip.”
She added that her father-in-law was elected from the seat and has done a lot of development for the area while her husband has also served the people.
“There may be challenges, but we will win. What works have been left out will be completed by me,” she said.
Sambit Routray said, "The Chief Minister has always given importance to women empowerment.”
Speaking to OTV BJD's Narla MLA candidate Manorama Mohanty said, "I was hopeful for the ticket. The Chief Minister has reposed faith in me and we will fight the polls with the support and cooperation of all.”