BHUBANESWAR: Six sitting MPs and 14 MLAs were denied tickets by the ruling BJD in the first two phases of elections, candidates for which were announced by Chief Minister and party supremo Naveen Patnaik on Monday. Kalikesh Singhdeo is the only sitting MP who has been renominated from the Balangir Lok Sabha seat.
Prominent among those who have been denied tickets include two-time MP from Berhampur Siddhant Mohapatra. Former Union minister Chandrasekhar Sahu has been nominated from Berhampur seat. Sahu had unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha polls for the last two terms against Mohapatra.
BJD has decided to field two Rajya Sabha MPs Prasanna Acharya and Achyuta Samanta in the Lok Sabha polls from Bargarh and Kandhamal respectively. While Acharya replaced sitting MP Prabhas Singh, Samanta has been preferred over sitting MP Pratyusha Rajeswari Singh.While Kausalya Hikaka has replaced her husband Jhina Hikaka as the BJD’s candidate from Koraput Lok Sabha seat, SC/ST Development Minister Ramesh Majhi is the regional outfit’s nominee from the neighbouring Nabarangpur Parliamentary constituency. Ramesh has replaced sitting MP Balabhadra Majhi who has joined the BJP.
Former Urban Development Minister Pushpendra Singhdeo has been given ticket from Kalahandi seat in place of sitting MP Arka Keshari Deo. Singhdeo was the sitting BJD MLA from Dharamgarh constituency. Besides, BJD has decided to field Pramila Bisoi, a woman candidate, from Aska. Sitting MP from Aska Ladu Kishore Swain passed away in February this year.
Sunita Biswal, daughter of former chief minister and Congress veteran Hemananda Biswal, has been given ticket for Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat. Hockey star Dilip Tirkey, who had unsuccessfully contested 2014 Lok Sabha polls from the constituency on a BJD ticket, has not been renominated.The party has denied ticket to five-time MLA from Berhampur Assembly constituency Ramesh Chandra Chau Patnaik. He has been replaced by former president of Berhampur District Congress Committee Bikram Kumar Panda who joined BJD along with former Union minister Sahu last year.
Former Rajya Sabha MP Bhupinder Singh has been given ticket from Narla Assembly constituency. The party has renominated senior ministers Surjya Narayan Patro, Usha Devi, Niranjan Pujari and Bikram Keshari Arukha, Lal Bihari Himirika and Rabi Narayan Nanda from Digapahandi, Chikiti, Sonepur, Bhanjanagar, Rayagada and Jeypore Assembly constituencies respectively. Speaker of Odisha Assembly Pradip Kumar Amat has been renominated from Boudh.
Fourteen MLAs who have been denied tickets include Trinath Gomango (Gunupur), Dambaru Sisa (Chitrakonda), Anam Naik (Bhawanipatna), Dhaneswar Majhi (Narla), Priyanshu Pradhan (Chhatrapur), Basanti Mallik (Mohana), Debraj Mohanty (Aska), V Sugnani Kumari Deo (Kabisuryanagar), Purna Chandra Sethi (Khallikote), Rajiv Patra (Baliguda), Purna Nayak (Daspalla), Ayub Khan (Kantabanji) and Rita Sahu (Bijepur).Candidates of nine Assembly constituencies out of the 63 going to polls in the first two phases are yet to be announced.