Bhubaneswar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made a significant move on Saturday by unveiling its second list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Odisha.
In a press release issued on Saturday, the BJP announced that its Central Election Committee has finalized candidates for three crucial Lok Sabha seats in the state, namely Cuttack, Kandhamal, and Jajpur.
The saffron party has nominated seasoned leader Bhartruhari Mahtab for the prestigious Cuttack constituency. Mahtab, a veteran politician, has been elected from Cuttack six times since 1998. His entry into the BJP came after his resignation from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
Sukanta Kumar Panigrahi has been chosen as the BJP’s candidate for the Kandhamal parliamentary constituency. Panigrahi, who contested from Kandhamal in 2014, secured the third position in the election. This time, he will be up against BJD’s sitting MP, Achyuta Samanta.
For the Jajpur parliamentary constituency, the BJP has nominated Rabindra Narayan Behera, a former director of the National Informatics Centre, Odisha.