BHUBANESWAR: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday released the second list of candidates for 21 Assembly seats and nominated former Union Minister Dilip Ray from Rourkela. In a notable change, the central election committee (CEC) of the BJP renominated senior leader and former minister Surama Padhi from Ranpur Assembly segment by replacing Tapas Ranjan Martha.
Martha, BJP's Nayagarh district unit president, was among the 112 candidates who figured in the first list the party announced on April 2. He was stated to have the backing of national spokesperson and Puri Lok Sabha candidate Sambit Patra.
Pottangi is the other Assembly constituency where the party changed the nominee. Chaitanya Nandibali has replaced Chaitanya Hantal as the latter belong to scheduled caste.
The assembly seat is reserved for scheduled tribe (ST). Days after joining the BJP, former Congress MLA from Laxmipur Kailash Chandra Kulesika has got nomination from the seat. Kulesika had joined BJD following assurance of a ticket from the regional party which repeated its sitting MLS Prabhu Jani.
Making an explosive statement after his nomination, Kulesika alleged that tickets are being sold by the BJD and the asking rate for Laxmipur was in the range of Rs 5 crore to 6 crore. Earlier, he had claimed that the BJD offered him Rs 1 crore with a promise to make him the chairman of the Special Development Council if he withdrew from the ticket race.
As many as 16 out of the 21 candidates are new faces. The party sprang a surprise by naming Lalit Behera, a political greenhorn from a moderate background for the politically sensitive Rajnagar Assembly seat. Behera, though, will have a tough time as he will face sitting BJD MLA Dhruba Sahu who now has the support of former Congress MLA Ansuman Mohanty. Son of former minister Nalini Mohanty, Ansuman has joined the BJD and is the candidate from Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat against BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda. The BJP has accommodated former MLA from Nimapara Baidhar Mallick in Kakatpur constituency under Jagatsinghpur Lok Sabha seat.
After denying renomination to Union minister Bishweswar Tudu from Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha seat, the party has not considered his candidature for any of the nine Assembly seats in the district. The party has also dropped sitting MLA Bhudan Murmu from Saraskana and named Bhadav Hansda in his place. Hansda was elected from the constituency in 2014 on a BJD ticket but he switched camp to BJP after being dropped in 2019 election.
For Karanjia Assembly segment, the party has renominated former MLA Padmacharan Hiburu. In the electoral politics since 1995, Haiburu was elected once in 2000 as an Independent. He tried his luck on a Congress ticket in 2004 and BJP in 2019 but lost both elections. The nominees for Rairangpur (Jolen Barda) and Bangiriposi (Sanjali Murmu) are new to electoral politics.
As reported by TNIE, Jagannath Nundurka and Basanta Kumar Ullaka have been selected for the Bissam Cuttack and Rayagada seats.
In effect, the BJP announced candidates for 131 out of 147 Assembly seats. Candidates for the remaining 16 seats are likely to be announced before April 20, party sources said.