Amid an intensified exercise by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) to select prospective candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the party’s Puri district unit president Dibakar Patra announced the names of MLA nominees for Satyabadi and Bramhagiri Assembly seats on Saturday.
During a merger ceremony at the Sankha Bawan, Patra said that former MLA Sanjay Dasburma will surely come out victorious in the Satyabadi Assembly segment and incumbent Satyabadi MLA Umakant Samantaray will win in Brahmagiri.
Patra also asserted, “We will ensure victories for both the leaders by massive vote margins.”
He also sounded confident about the BJD's sixth victory in a row. "Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is going to be the Chief Minister again for the sixth time," he observed.
Both Dasburma and Samantaray were in the news recently for their alleged squabbling on the seat choice.
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Usually, the party supremo or top leadership of the party announces names of their nominees for the Parliamentary and Assembly seats, but Patra's announcement came as a surprise, leaving many to wonder if his announcement was deliberate or a faux pas in the spur of the moment.
Surprisingly, Umakant Samantaray was conspicuous by his absence on the occasion.
However, no reactions were received either from other leaders of the BJD or Umakant Samantaray.