Hunt On For Next Chief Minister Of Odisha, State Leaders In Delhi

The burning question of who will be the first BJP Chief Minister of Odisha will be decided within the next two days, the state party leadership has indicated. At least half-a-dozen names, MPs and MLAs, are doing the rounds, including the party's senior leaders Dharmendra Pradhan and Baijayanth 'Jay' Panda, two tribal leaders and a woman.

Mr Pradhan, Union minister for a decade and the party's MP from Sambhalpur, has also been the party's election in-charge in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Odisha. His background, including the administrative experience, is seen to give him an edge.  

The other draw is that Mr Pradhan's seat, Sambhalpur, is considered the safest in the state, so anyone replacing him will not have a tough time.

The other key BJP leader of the state, Mr Panda, is the BJP's MP from Kendrapara. Once a close confidant of Naveen Patnaik, who exited the top post after his party was wiped out in the assembly election, Mr Panda is a two-time Rajya Sabha MP and a one-term MP from Lok Sabha. He holds a management and an engineering degree from the US, led a successful career in the corporate world before switching to politics.

The third is veteran MP, former Union Minister and tribal face Jual Oram, who just won the election from the Sundargarh Lok Sabha constituency.

It is, however, debatable whether the BJP, which is already way below the majority mark in Parliament, will pull out an MP to become the Chief Minister of Odisha. This is why a second list of MLAs and local leaders have been drawn up.

Those in running include four-time MLA Mohan Manjhi, top Scheduled Caste leader and two-time MLA Mukesh Mahaling, two-time MLA and Scheduled Caste leader Suryavanshi Suraj and Aparajita Sarangi, former bureaucrat and the BJP's woman face from the state in Delhi.

Also among the contenders is Girish Chandra Murmu, the Controller and Auditor General of India. A tribal from Mayurbhanj district, he is said to have a personal rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Droupadi Murmu.

The state leadership is camping out in Delhi to resolve the knotty question. If a final call is taken within the next two days by the party's central leadership, the oath ceremony could be held on June 10, sources said.

In the results declared on Tuesday, the BJP was found to have unseated the 24-year government of Naveen Patnaik with 78 of the 147 assembly seats. The BJD won 51 seats.