The Biju Janata Dalhas fielded 33 percent women candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in the state.
The nomination process for the 21 parliamentary seats concluded on Thursday with BJD chief and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announcing Lekhasri Samantsinghar as the party's candidate for Balasore Lok Sabha seat.
Previously, Patnaik had named six other women as nominees for the LS polls.
In 2019, five out of the seven women candidates Patnaik had fielded had won.
This time around, Patnaik made changes to the roster by dropping two sitting women MPs, Chandrani Murmu from Keonjhar and Pramila Bisoi from Aska, while opting to re-nominate Kausalya Hikaka for Koraput Lok Sabha seat.
The seven women candidates are -- Lekhasri Samantsinghar (Balasore), Sarmistha Sethi (Jajpur), Manjula Mandal (Bhadrak), Rajashree Mallik (Jagatsinghour), Parineeta Mishra (Bargarh), Kausalya Hikaka (Koraput) and Ranjita Sahu (Aska).
Patnaik's Lok Sabha candidates also include eight turncoats (38 percent).
They are Lekhasri Samantsinghar (Balasore), Bhrugu Baxipatra (Berhampur), Pradeep Majhi (Nabarangpur), Surendra Singh Bhoi (Bolangir), Parineeta Mishra (Baragarh), Dhanarjay Sidu (Keonjhar), Ansuman Mohanty (Kendrapara) and Manmoth Routray (Bhubaneswar).
Samantasinghar had recently switched allegiance from the BJP's Odisha unit. Notably, she is the second former BJP vice-president, following Bhrugu Baxipatra, to receive BJD's nomination for the Lok Sabha elections. She will contest against BJP's sitting MP and former Union Minister Pratap Jena.
Out of the nine assembly candidates announced on Thursday, two sitting MLAs -- Sambit Routray (Paradip) and Bhupinder Singh (Narla) -- have been denied re-nomination.
Madhab Sardar, who was defeated in Keonjhar assembly seat in 2019 elections, will replace Premenada Nayak in Telkoi.
Nayak had earlier resigned from the BJD and joined the BJP and got a nomination from the saffron party.
Prasanna Acharya, the party's senior vice-president, has been nominated as the candidate for Sambalpur assembly seat. He will take on leader of opposition Jaynarayan Mishra of the BJP.
Sitting MLAs who have been renominated are -- Prabhu Jani (Laxmipur), Braja Pradhan (Talcher), Chakramani Kanhar (Baliguda) and Ananta Narayan Jena (Bhubaneswar central).
Former minister and sitting MLA Rohit Pujari has been re-nominated from Rairakhol seat while Paradip MLA Sambit Routray has been replaced by his wife Gitanjali.
Patnaik has denied party nomination to sitting MLA Bhupinder Singh from Narla assembly segment in Kalahandi district. Manorama Mohanty has replaced Singh, a new face in the electoral race.
So far Patnaik has announced names of 117 (of the 147) candidates for assembly elections and all the 21 nominees for the Lok Sabha elections.
"I thank Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and party general secretary Pranab Prakash Das. The CM has a vision, plan and strategy for the development of the state as well as Balasore Lok Sabha constituency. I will reach out to every household," Lekhasri told reporters after her name was announced by the BJD president.
Paradip candidate Gitanjali Routray, wife of sitting MLA Sambit Routray said, "I thank CM Naveen Patnaik and 5T chairman VK Pandian for reposing faith in me to fight the polls from Paradip."
Sambit Routray, who was denied re-nomination from Paradip from where his wife become a candidate, said, "The chief minister has always given importance to women empowerment."
