Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, five former military members and the former CMD of Nalco have joined the BJP

Ahead of the Lok Sabha and Odisha Assembly elections, former Nalco Chief Medical Director Tapan Kumar Chand and five former military members joined the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Odisha on Wednesday.

Manmohan Samal, the head of the BJP’s Odisha branch, welcomed Chand and other new members of the saffron party here. “I greet Mr. Chand and a few former military personnel during the celebration. The BJP in Odisha would benefit from their presence, according to Samal.

Chand was the head of the student union of Utkal University in Bhubaneswar and a former student leader connected to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). On July 25, 2015, he was the full-time Chief Executive Officer of National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO), Navratna PSU. He joined Central Coalfields Limited as a director two years later. at addition, he held the position of Resident Director for Odisha and Chhattisgarh at Vedanta. It has been claimed that he has over thirty years of expertise in the mining and metal industries.

Three of the five former military members are from the Navy, while the other two are from the Indian Air Force, according to Samal. Previously, on March 3, retired Air Marshal of the Indian Air Force Dilip Kumar Patnaik, former Joint Secretary of the Rajya Sabha Ramakanta Das, and former IAS officer Hrusikesh Panda joined the BJP’s Odisha branch.

Six former MLAs and four current MLAs are said to have joined the BJP so far. According to BJP Odisha’s post on X, the people of Odisha who have accepted Modi’s assurance would soon create a double-engine BJP administration in the state.

This year’s Lok Sabha elections are scheduled for April and May. This month is when the election dates are anticipated to be revealed.

Ahead of its competitors, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unveiled its first roster of 195 contenders for the next Lok Sabha elections on Saturday. There were 57 applicants from the OBC/Backward Class category, 27 candidates from the Scheduled Caste (SC), 28 candidates from the women’s category, and 27 candidates from the Scheduled Tribes (ST). This week, the BJP is probably going to announce its second list of candidates.

While Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined the BJP from the Congress in 2020, will run from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek a third consecutive term in the Lower House from Varanasi.

34 ministers from the Center and the States make up the 195 candidates, and two of them are previous chief ministers. Mansukh Mandaviya is contesting from Porbandar, while Home Minister Amit Shah is running from Gandhinagar. Union Defense Minister Rajnath Singh will run for reelection from Lucknow in the Lok Sabha, while Smriti Irani, her central cabinet colleague, will run from Amethi once again.