After Naveen Patnaik's 24-year run, Odisha to get a BJP CM. Who is in the race?

On Wednesday, Naveen Patnaik tendered his resignation as the chief minister of Odisha to Governor Raghubar Das at Raj Bhavan in Bhubaneshwar.

The development comes a day after Patnaik’s 24-year reign over the state was ended by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which on Tuesday won 78 of the 147 assembly seats.

The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won 51 seats, far fewer than the necessary 74 majority.

Following the BJD’s poor poll performance, now all eyes are on Odisha’s next chief minister.

Leaders in the race for the CM post

Jual Oram

Oram has served as an MLA once and as an MP five times.

The 63-year-old was among the first people in Odisha to join the BJP.

Raised in a low-income tribal household in Sundargarh, he holds an electrical engineering diploma degree.

He worked for BHEL for five years before quitting to enter politics.

On 29 October 1999, then-prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee established the ministry, appointing Oram as the first minister for tribal affairs in the Union.

In the 2024 elections, he emerged victorious in the Sundergarh Lok Sabha constituency.

Oram said recently, “If I am entrusted with the job, I will faithfully discharge my duties as the chief minister. Though I do not aspire to be the CM, I won’t turn down the job if offered.”

Dharmendra Pradhan

Union Education Minister Pradhan won the Sambalpur seat, defeating BJD’s Pranab Prakash Das by a margin of over lakh votes.

In the latest election, he led the BJP campaign of Odia Asmita, which translates to Odia pride.

Party officials, according to Hindustan Times, believe that Pradhan has an advantage over rivals in the CM contest because of his ten years as the Union’s minister of education and petroleum.

He entered the political arena in 2000 as an MLA.

He represented Deogarh in Odisha as a Lok Sabha MP in 2004.

In 2009, he was defeated from the Pallahara assembly seat in 2009.

Later, he was elected to Rajya Sabha from Bihar and subsequently from Madhya Pradesh.

Moreover, Pradhan has also served as an election in-charge in Bihar and as party in-charge in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, and Odisha.

Sambit Patra

National BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra is also the one under consideration.

He is a newly elected MP from Puri constituency.

The 50-year-old holds medical degrees from VSS Medical College and Hospital in Burla town, Sambalpur district, and SCB Medical College, Cuttack.

Before coming into politics, he worked as a doctor at Hindu Rao Hospital in Delhi.

In 2012, he was the saffron party Delhi unit’s spokesperson and unsuccessfully ran in the 2012 municipal council elections for the Delhi ward of Kashmere Gate.

In 2014, he was appointed as BJP’s national spokesperson by then-Union minister Arun Jaitley and was often seen on news channels during debates.

Baijayant Panda

BJP’s national vice-president Baijayant Panda is seen as one of the few leaders with strong support from the key RSS leaders.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he defeated BJD’s Anshuman Mohanty in the latest poll by over 66,536 votes.

The 60-year-old is a one-time Rajya Sabha MP and two-time Lok Sabha MP from BJD.

Before his political journey began, being an engineering and management graduate of Michigan Technological University, he was successful in the corporate world.

He joined the BJP six years ago and ran unsuccessfully from the Kendrapara Lok Sabha seat in 2019.

GC Murmu

Known for “getting things done,” Girish Chandra Murmu, a retired Gujarat cadre IAS officer from the 1985 batch, is another candidate under consideration.

According to HT, some BJP officials believe, Murmu, whose hometown is Mayurbhanj’s Betnoti, may be the great choice to lead Odisha.

The 65-year-old is currently working as the World Health Organization’s (WHO) external auditor.

Previously, he has served as the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s comptroller and auditor general (CAG), Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s CMO’s senior secretary, and a few significant roles in the PM administration at the Centre.

The sitting Balasore MP Pratap Sarangi and Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi are also being considered for the post, as per CNBC-TV18.

Criteria for selection

In response to rumours, state BJP president Manmohan Samal said on Wednesday that the matter will be decided within a day or two by the party’s parliamentary board.

Additionally, he highlighted remarks made by Caretaker prime minister Narendra Modi during an election rally in Berhampur, in which he stated that the new BJP CM would take the oath of office on 10 June.

“The selection of the CM will be based on the criteria set by the PM – an Odia who will uphold the culture and tradition of the state will be the next chief minister of Odisha,” Samal was quoted by PTI.

Ending the two decades old rule

In Odisha, the BJP campaign highlighted issues like law and order, corruption, labour migration, mismanagement of the Shree Jagannath Temple, criticism of CM Naveen Patnaik’s non-Odia successor, and Odia Asmita.

Fuelled by Ram temple construction, strong voter impact was exerted by the Modi wave in both urban and rural regions, as per The Times of India.

In the latest elections conducted in four phases, the BJP secured 78 of the 147 assembly seats, while the BJD won only 51 seats.

In the 2019 Assembly elections, the Patnaik-led party had won a majority, i.e. 112 seats, while the BJP had secured only 23 seats, and the Congress nine seats.

Patnaik’s resignation marks the end of an era in the state’s politics.

He took oath as Odisha’s CM for the first time on 5 March 2000 and was re-elected four times since then.

Speaking to the newly-elected MLAs of his party on Wednesday, he said, “When I first became the Chief Minister, 70 per cent of the people of Odisha were living below the poverty line. Now, only 10 per cent are below it. Our efforts in agriculture and irrigation sectors and women empowerment have led to this achievement. We have nothing to be ashamed of.”

With inputs from agencies