Bhubaneswar: Keeping an eye on the upcoming municipal elections, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Friday released the list of 33 new district presidents after the party’s organisational elections for 2019-20. The list was shared by the party’s State Returning Officer Pratap Keshari Deb.
The list names former mayor of Bhubaneswar Municipal Commission (BMC) and Bhubaneswar-Central MLA Ananta Narayan Jena as the district president of Bhubaneswar. The list also names former Barabati-Cuttack MLA Debashish Samantray as the district president of Cuttack.
The list, which was made public Friday, claimed that Ramesh Chandra Chyau Patnaik will be the district president of Ganjam while Sudam Marndi will take care of Mayurbhanj. Maheswar Mohanty from Puri will be the district president for the area and Sarada Prasad Nayak will head the district unit in Rourkela.
With the fourth phase of election of district presidents, the work of electing members for the State Council has been completed. The regional party earlier in the month had the arduous task of electing members from Gram Panchayats, Ward Committee members in urban areas.
The party claims to have more than 1 crore workers having primary membership. With the initial works done, now the party will look forward to the concluding phase of elections where it will decide on the State Executive members and also the State President of the party.
Responding to the change of guard in the districts, Ananta Narayan Jena told reporters that the combined efforts of the party workers will strengthen its base in the state. He also claimed that the party workers and leaders will try to ensure smooth implementation of the state schemes while accepting the fact that upcoming municipal elections would be a challenge for the regional party.