Bhubaneswar: Five-time Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was elected as the leader of BJD Legislature Party in Odisha Assembly today.

Patnaik was elected at a meeting of the BJD MLAs at the regional party’s headquarters here.

With his election as the leader of BJD Legislature Party, Patnaik is all set to become the Leader of Opposition in Odisha Assembly.

Rairakhol MLA Prasanna Acharya was elected at the deputy leader of the BJD Legislature Party.

“The newly-elected BJD MLAs today chose me as the leader of BJD Legislature Party. Prasanna Acharya was elected as deputy leader. Binjharpur MLA Pramila Mallik will be the BJD chief whip in Odisha Assembly while Aul MLA Pratap Deb will be the deputy chief whip,” said Patnaik to reporters soon after the meeting.

The BJD lost power to the BJP in Odisha in the recently concluded Assembly polls in the state.

The regional party managed to get 51 seats while the candidates of BJP came victorious in 78 Assembly constituencies of the total 147 in the state.

Notably, Patnaik had assumed the office of the Chief Minister in Odisha when the BJD, in coalition with the BJP, came to power in the state for the first time in 2000.

The coalition retained power in the Assembly polls in 2004 and Patnaik became the Chief Minister of Odisha for the second time.

After snapping ties with the BJP in 2008, the BJD, under the leadership of Patnaik managed to win the Assembly polls in the state thrice in a row in between 2009 and 2019.

Patnaik had served as the Chief Minister of Odisha for 24 years uninterruptedly.

Before his tenure as Odisha CM, Patnaik was a Lok Sabha MP and he had also served as an Union Minister under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.