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Voting for all these seats will be conducted on April 10 in the first phase, which will decide the fate of candidates in 70 assembly and 10 Lok Sabha constituencies, mostly belong to the western and southern parts of the state.
The last date for filing of nominations for the first phase is only a week away. In the candidates list announced today, the party supremo, Naveen Patnaik has inserted five new names among contestants for assmbly seats. This includes nomination of Anup Sai for Brajarajnagar. Sai, who won from this constituency on a Congress ticket in the last election, has joined BJD few days back.
The other new faces include Bhubaneswar Kisan (Kuchinda), Manas Madkami (Malkangiri), Debesh Acharya (Bargarh) and Anita Pradhan, wife of sitting BJD MLA Sanjeev Pradhan for Deogarh seat.
The biggest twist in today's list was the shifting of senior BJD leader and finance minister Prasanna Acharya to Bijepur assembly constituency, currently held by Congress. In the last election, Acharya had won from Rairakhol, which has now gone to Rohit Pujari.
Rest of the seats, including Sushant Singh from Bhatli, saw renaming of the candidates who contested in 2009.
The party also named contestants for three Lok Sabha constituency. They are Nagendra Pradhan (Sambalpur), Balabhdra Majhi (Nabarangapur) and Bargarh (Dr Prabhas Singh). Majhi and Singh are new faces while Pradhan had contested from Sambalpur in 2004 elections.
BJD leadership is yet to announce the candidates for 22 other assembly seats and two more Lok Sabha seats going for polls in the first phase.
Earlier, the party, which had conducted elaborate surveys through both internal and external sources, had hinted that about half of the candidates will be changed. Anticipating overhauling in BJD candidates list, several Congress leaders had joined the ruling party, inviting anger of local BJD workers.
Sources said, the party is now rethinking its poll strategy amid fears that large scale changes in candidates list could breed rebellion and jeopardize its success ratio. The party leadership is said to be finalising the candidates' list after discussions with several local leaders and former and serving bureaucrats.
Key tribal leaders of BJD from Mayurbhanj, Laxman Tudu and Saraswati Hembram met Patnaik at his residence today for finalisation of candidates from the district, where it has announced to have seat sharing arrangement with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).
Several other party leaders and ticket seekers are daily making a beeline in front of Patnaik's residence and are also seen trying to undermine the chances of other aspirants by distributing memorandum against candidates who are tipped to be front runners for the party ticket.
