Bijepur bypoll in Odisha: Naveen among 40 star campaigners for BJD

Bhubaneswar: The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) today announced the names of its 40 star campaigners, including Odisha Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik, who will campaign for Rita Sahu, party’s candidate for Bijepur bypoll scheduled to be held on February 24.

Patnaik will campaign for Sahu at Gaisilet and Barpali blocks in Bargarh district on February 19 and 21, respectively, party sources said.

As many as 27 MLAs and and 6 MPs of the conch party are among the 40 star campaigners.

The names include Ved Prakash Agarwal, Surya Narayan Patro, Ananga Udaya Singh Deo, Tathagata Satpathy, Pratap Jena, Bikram Keshari Arukh, Kalikesh Singh Deo, Pratap Deb, Siddhanta Mahapatra, Anubhav Mohanty, Akash Das Nayak, Munna Khan, Arindam Roy, Kuna Tripathy, Rohit Pujari, Raseswari Panigrahi, Prashant Jagdev, Rajendra Sahu, Byomkesh Ray, Pranab Balabantaray, Dibyashankar Mishra, Pushpendra Singh Deo, Priti Ranjan Ghadei, Debashish Nayak, Samer Das, Umakanta Samantaray, Braja Pradhan, Sanjeev Sahu and Pramila Mallick.

Notably, the Bijepur assembly seat had fallen vacant following the demise of Congress MLA Subal Sahu on August 22, last year. Later, Subal Sahu’s wife Rita and son Sumit had joined BJD on September 23, last year.