Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik springs a surprise, fields new faces for bypolls

BHUBANESWAR: In a surprise move, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday nominated a former ward councillor, Swarup Kumar Das, as the BJD candidate for Balasore Sadar Assembly constituency for the November 3 bypoll, ignoring big names for the ticket.

However, Bijay Shankar Das, son of former minister Bishnu Charan Das, has been announced as the party candidate for Tirtol seat. While the choice of candidate for the Tirtol constituency was expected, even senior leaders of the party had no hint about the nominee for the Balasore Sadar seat.

BJD vice-president Debiprasad Mishra announced the names of the two nominees after approval by the party president Naveen Patnaik. Das himself expressed surprise over his candidature. “I was not in the race. I never expected to be made a candidate for the seat,” he said. 

His elder brother Anup Kumar Das was twice chairman of the Balasore municipality earlier. Several senior party leaders were in the race for ticket for Balasore Sadar seat. Prominent among them were former MP and district BJD president Rabindra Jena, his wife Subhasini Jena, Ollywood actor Arindam Roy and three time MLA from the seat Jiban Pradeep Das. The name of former MLA Arun Dey who recently joined BJD was also doing the rounds as a possible candidate.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the candidature of Das, a large number of BJD workers and leaders assembled in front of the Balasore BJD district office. Mostly supporters of Rabindra Jena, they demanded that the candidate for the seat be reconsidered.

Campaigning for the two seats going to polls is all set to heat up with all the three major parties declaring their candidates. The BJP had on Sunday announced  Manas Ranjan Dutta, son of deceased sitting MLA Madan Mohan Dutta and Raj Kishore Behera as candidates for Balasore and Tirtol seats respectively. 

The Congress on Monday evening also announced its candidates Mamata Kundu and Himanshu Bhusan Mallick from Balasore Sadar and Tirtol constituencies respectively.