Panchayat Polls: Bijay, Dilip not in list of BJP’s star campaigners

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha unit of BJP on Wednesday declared its 40-star campaigners for the panchayat elections scheduled to be held in February this year.

However, it has not included two senior party leaders Bijay Mohapatra and Dilip Ray on the list. It shows that factional feud within the party is yet over.

Earlier, the two leaders had skipped several meetings of the party. Even they did not turn up to the mega rally of BJP attended by national president Amit Shah in November last year. Bijay Mohapatra has gone on record criticizing the party leadership.

The leaders who will campaign for BJP include state BJP president Basant Panda, legislature party leader KV Singhdeo, union ministers Jual Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan.

Besides, several other leaders Pradeep Purohit, Rabi Nayak, Radharani Panda, Biswa Bhusan Harchandan, Manmohan Samal, Suresh Pujari, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Surama Padhi, and Samir Dey will campaign for party candidates during the panchayat polls.