BJP names former MLA Radharani Panda as candidate for Brajrajnagar bypoll in Odisha
The Hindu
Brajrajnagar bypoll was necessitated following BJD’s Kishore Mohanty’s demise last December
The BJP on May 8 named former MLA Radharani Panda as its candidate for the May 31 bypoll to the Brajrajnagar Assembly seat in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district.
The central election committee of the BJP has decided to field Ms. Panda from the seat after careful considerations, a statement issued by the party said.
Ms. Panda had bagged the seat by defeating BJD candidate Anup Kumar Sai in 2014.
She, however, lost to BJD’s Kishore Mohanty by a margin of 11,634 during the 2019 Assembly polls.
Bypoll was necessitated in Brajrajnagar following Mohanty’s demise last December.
The saffron party, despite its drubbing in the recently concluded rural and urban polls in Brajrajnagar area, feels that Ms. Panda’s organisational skills will help her clinch the seat.
The ruling BJD and the Congress are yet to name their candidates for the seat.

In , the grape capital of India and host of the Simhastha Kumbh Mela every 12 years, environmental concerns over a plan to cut 1,800 trees for the proposed Sadhugram project in the historic Tapovan area have sharpened political fault lines ahead of local body elections. The issue has pitted both Sena factions against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra. While Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief, and Uddhav Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena (UBT), remain political rivals, their parties have found rare common ground in Tapovan, where authorities propose clearing trees across 34 acres to build Sadhugram and a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) hub, as part of a ₹300-crore infrastructure push linked to the pilgrimage.












