BJP fields Pradhan for Sambalpur LS seat drops Tudu from Mayurbhanj

Bhubaneswar, Mar 25 The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has dropped four of its sitting MPs in Odisha, including Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs and Jal Shakti Bisheswar Tudu, in the coming Lok Sabha election.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who had been elected to Rajya Sabha consecutively for two terms, has been fielded for the Sambalpur
Lok Sabha seat replacing sitting MP Nitesh Gang Dev.
He was elected to Lok Sabha from the Deogarh Parliamentary constituency in 2004 when both the BJP and BJD had entered into an electoral alliance in Odisha.
Besides Tudu, the other three sitting MPs dropped in the lists are Basant Kumar Panda(Kalahandi), Suresh Pujari ( Bargarh), and Nitesh Gang Dev( Sambalpur).
Former union Ministers Jual Oram and Pratap Sarangi have been renominated to contest the Sundargarh and Balasore Lok Sabha seats respectively.
Similarly, sitting MPs Aparajita Sarangi and Sangeeta Kumaru Singdeo were also renominated for Bhubaneswar and Bolangir Lok Sabha seats respectively.
The party had released names of candidates in 18 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats on March 24, leaving three seats to be decided later. The Central Election Committee (CEC) of the BJP has not announced the candidate for the Cuttack, Jajpur, and Kandhamal Lok Sabha seats.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP won eight of the total 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha.They are Sambalpur, Matyurbyhanj, Kalahndi, Bargarh, Sundargarh, Bhubaneswar, Balasore and Balangir.
The BJP this time decided to field Naba Charan Majhi for the Mayurbhanj(ST) Lok Sabha seat replacing Union Minister Bisheswar Tudu and allowed party’s national Spokesperson Sambit Patra to contest for the second consecutive time from the Puri Lok Sabha Seat.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Patra was defeated at the hands of BJD candidate Pinaki Mishra by a margin of over 11,000 votes.
BJP national vice-president Baijayant Panda will contest the Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat. He was elected from Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat on a BJD ticket, twice during the 15th and 16th Lok Sabha elections and also twice to Rajya Sabha during 2000 to 2009.
Panda was expelled from the BJD for alleged anti-party activities in January 2018.He, however,resigned from BJD and joined BJP in March 2019 and became the Vice President of the party.