Jayanarayan BJP legislature party leader

Odisha state BJP on Sunday decided to make Sambalpur MLA Jayanarayan Mishra its legislature party leader. Mishra replaces K V Singhdeo, who took over as party’s state unit president on March 13. The BJP has six MLAs in the 147-member assembly, which include Bhimsen Choudhury from Bonei, currently under suspension.

Maintaining the one-man-one-post principle, Mishra was elected as the new leader of the BJP Legislature Party at the meeting of the MLAs held at the State party office on Sunday. National BJP secretary in-charge of Odisha, Santosh Gangwar, was present.

Singhdeo proposed Mishra’s name and it was seconded by Karendra Majhi and Manoj Pradhan. Gangwar announced Mishra’s name as the new leader of the BJP Legislature Party.

The BJP had been passing through an unprecedented crisis till KV took over as the president ending months of dithering. KV replaced Jual Oram whose term ended in December.

The BJP has also not completed its organisational elections, which was abruptly halted by the party’s central leadership. “Elections are due in 15 organisational districts. We are trying to complete the process by April 30,” KV said. The BJP president said the core committee has taken a lot of decisions on party’s future course of action. Party sources said since the general election is not far off, the core committee drew up a preliminary road map for holding public meetings and people-contact programmes across the state soon.

After his election, Mishra, a former minister, said the party will raise corruption issues, in which the Naveen Patnaik Government is involved, both inside and outside the Assembly. He slammed the Government for the deteriorating law and order situation and the increasing atrocities on women, which has been vociferously raised by the Opposition in the current session of the Assembly.