BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik on Saturday declared the names of candidates for the three Assembly seats of Bhogarai, Khurda and Begunia.
With this, the BJD has so far nominated candidates for 144 of the total 147 Assembly seats in the state. The remaining three constituencies are Korei, Khandapada and Nilagiri.
Sitting MLA from Begunia Rajendra Sahoo will contest from Khurda while Pradeep Kumar Sahoo, who had quit Congress and joined BJD two-and-half years back, will be the party candidate from Begunia. Party spokesperson Goutam Buddha Das has got the nomination from Bhograi.
The party dropped two senior sitting MLAs - Ananta Das from Bhogarai and Jyotirindra Nath Mitra from Khurda. Senior vice president of the party and district planning committee chairman of Balasore, Das was the minister of state for Higher Education and Industries during 2017-19 in the fourth term of the BJD government.
The party left many surprised by changing the candidates in the two key Assembly constituencies in Khurda district. While Rajendra had won from Khurda as an Independent candidate in 2009 and on BJD ticket in 2014, he replaced Prasanta Kumar Jagadev in Begunia in 2019 and emerged victorious. Jagadev was then fielded from Chilika.