BHUBANESWAR: Even after being projected as BJP’s chief ministerial candidate for the 2019 Assembly election, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan is keeping everyone guessing on the constituency from where he will contest.
With speculations flying thick and fast that Pradhan may try his luck from Pallahara seat after his whirlwind tour to the constituency on Sunday, neither he nor his party is ready to come out with a clear answer.
Responding to media queries on the possibility of his contesting from Pallahara, the seat which he won for the first time in 2000, the Union Minister said he is yet to decide.
“I may contest from any of the 147 Assembly seats in the State but my first priority is to ensure victory for the BJP in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections,” he said adding, “My party believes in collective leadership.”
While the Central BJP leadership is yet to name Pradhan as the party’s chief ministerial candidate for Odisha, senior party colleague and Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram has publicly endorsed his candidature for the top post.
“Dharmendra Pradhan will be the chief ministerial face of the BJP in Odisha. We will fight the forthcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections under his leadership. Our aim is to unseat Naveen Patnaik from power and put an end to the rule of the non-Odia bureaucrats in the State,” Oram said last week.
Pradhan, a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh, is often challenged by the leaders of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the ruling party in Odisha, to contest the election from his home State, where Assembly polls are due in 2019.
The Petroleum Minister, who often parried questions about his contesting Assembly or Lok Sabha elections from the State till last year, expressed his desire to fight the 2019 election at the Odisha Literary Festival here in October 2017.He, however, left it to the party to decide whether he will contest the Lok Sabha or Assembly election.