BHUBANESWAR: After an agonising wait, Utkal Bharat president and former MP Kharbela Swain returned to the BJP on Monday with his formal induction into saffron party and nomination from communally sensitive Kandhamal parliamentary seat.
"Inspired by strong and dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who successfully projected India as a world power and his fight against corruption from the top I offered my service to BJP. I thanked the BJP leadership and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for giving me this opportunity," Swain said after joining the BJP at simple function here.
Appreciating the belated fight of the BJP to dethrone an inefficient and corrupt BJD government, Swain, a bitter critic of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, said he joined the BJP to end the 19 years of misrule of the regional party.
A three-time BJP MP from Balasore from 1998, Swain severed ties with the saffron party a decade ago in December 2009 following difference with party's state leadership. He floated a new political party Utkal Bharat in February 2010 to take on the ruling BJD and opposition Congress.
Dubbing Swain's return to the BJP as 'home coming', Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said party workers never considered the former as leader of another party. Everyone in the party is happy with his return to the BJP, he added.
While the BJD has fielded education entrepreneur Achyuta Samant, the Congress has nominated Manoj Kumar Acharya for the Kandhamal seat.
Apart from Kandhamal, the BJP has named former Odisha DGP Prakash Mishra for Cuttack Lok Sabha seat and candidates for ten Assembly seats in the state today. Mishra joined the BJP on Sunday. Mishra was also DG of CRPF.
In a surprise move, the central election committee of the BJP has cleared the name of state BJP vice president Pitambar Acharya for Hinjili Assembly seat which is represented by the Chief Minister from 2000 onwards.
Among the Assembly seats declared on Monday is Rishabh Nanda, son of BJD's Rajya Sabha member Prashant Nanda who will fight from the Begunia assembly segment on a BJP ticket. Rishabh too has recently joined the party.
Others candidates include Dinesh Jain from Jharsuguda, Debendra Mahapatro from Rairakhol, Badrinarayan Dhal from Bhandaripokhari, Pradip Nayak from Bhadrak, Debanarayan Pradhan from Phulbani, Samapad Swain from Paradeep, Narendra Nayak from Jayadev and Biswaranjan Jena from Jatani.
BJP has, so far, declared candidates for 17 Lok Sabha seats and 131 Assembly segments. The state which will go for simultaneous polls for Assembly and Lok Sabha which have 147 seats and 21 seats respectively.