BJP Unveils Candidates for 2018 Odisha Assembly Election Amidst Political Drama
Prominent Defectors from BJD Included in BJP's Assembly List
The candidates for the 2018 Odisha Assembly election were revealed by the BJP on Tuesday.
Eleven2 of the 147 Assembly constituencies have announced candidates. The saffron party has already announced candidates for each of Odisha's 21 Lok Sabha seats. Additionally, the Congress announced their candidacies for 49 Assembly seats and 8 Lok Sabha seats.
Priority was given on the BJP Assembly list to include all of the politicians who defected from the governing Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and joined the saffron party. Prominent figures like as former MLA Priydarshi Mishra, former MP and movie star Sidhant Mohapatra, and former MLA and movie star Akash Das Nayak abandoned the BJD in favor of the BJP ticket. Anubhav Mohanty, a movie actor and Kendrapara MP, joined the saffron party on Monday and is expected to get a ticket from Cuttack, according to sources.
Nonetheless, there have been reports of uprisings against ticket distribution in several regions of the state. There was a lot of drama in the Dhenkanal Assembly constituency. Despite Krushna Chandra Patra having lost four previous elections, a group of party officials objected to the party's choice to provide him a ticket.
Party chiefs argued in front of Dharmendra Pradhan, a Union minister, who was there for a "Mishran Parva." Debraj Mohanty, who was refused a ticket, also resigned from his position in Aska, Ganjam district.
The BJD claimed earlier on Monday that the BJP was having trouble fielding candidates for the Assembly seats.
The 147 Assembly seats do not have any contenders. For this reason, not a single seat's identities have been released. As a result, they are absorbing all the outcasts into their ranks, according to BJD spokesman Swayam Prakash Mohapatra.
Golak Mohapatra, the vice president of the state BJP, declared: "We have announced the list of candidates." Permit them to present their roster. For what reason are they waiting? They could be waiting to bring in leaders from other groups. The BJD is almost about to fall apart.
Significantly, Ganeshwar Behera, a longtime Congressman, left the party today and is probably going to join the BJD shortly. Anshuman Mohanty and Chiranjib Biswal, two prominent members of the Congress from the coastal area, had before joined the BJD.
The BJD has already announced Anshuman Mohanty as its candidate for the Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat. Sources said that the BJD has guaranteed seats for Chiranjib and Ganeshwar Behera.
On the other hand, the candidates are a little irritated with the delay in releasing the list of applicants. In addition, the BJD has so far announced candidates for 15 Lok Sabha seats and 72 assembly seats. According to sources, BJD is probably going to release a new candidate list shortly.
President of the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) Sarat Kumar Pattanayak and senior Congress politician and former Union minister Bhakta Charan Das will contest for the Assembly seats of Nuapada and Narla, respectively, according to the Congress list.
