Ipsita Priyadarsini 
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday announced candidates list for 112 in Odisha. The BJP party has fielded Jayanta Kumar Sarangi from Puri, Prakash Chandra Sethi from Cuttack Sadar, and Jagannath Pradhan from Bhubaneswar Central. Odisha BJP chief Manmohan Samal will be contesting from Chandabali, and Manoj Kumar Mehar will fight from Junagarh. The saffron party has fielded Sisir Mishra from Hinjili, where he will be up against BJD supremo and chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
The party has re-nominated 21 of its 22 sitting MLAs. The lone legislator who has been denied the ticket was Lalitendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra from Brahmagiri in the Puri district. Mohapatra’s niece Upasana Mohapatra has got the ticket from the Brahmagiri Assembly seat. There are eight women candidates in BJP’s first list. Sitting MP from Bargarh Suresh Pujari will contest from Brajarajnagar Assembly seat. Pujari was denied the party ticket for contesting the Lok Sabha polls.
Leader of Opposition and MLA Jaynarayan Mishra will contest from his traditional Sambalpur assembly seat. Three turncoats from BJD, Arabinda Dhali, Akash Das Nayak, and Priyadarshi Mishra have been given BJP tickets.Arabinda Dhali will fight from the Jayadev assembly segment in the Khurda district. While actor-turned-politician Akash Das Nayak, has been given the ticket for the Korei Assembly segment in the Jajpur district, former BJD MLA Priyadarshi Mishra will fight the polls from the Bhubaneswar North seat. Former congress legislator Nihar Mahananda has also be rewarded with a ticket for Attabira.The party has already released list of its 21 lok sabha candiates from state.
