Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Wednesday elected Naveen Patnaik as the leader of the legislature party and the Leader of the Opposition in the Odisha Assembly.
The BJD held its legislature party meetings under the chairmanship of party chief Naveen Patnaik at Sankha Bhawan here this evening.
After the meeting, former chief minister Naveen Patnaik addressed the media persons and said, “We just had a meeting of the BJD MLAs who have been elected to the recent elections. I congratulated and thanked them. They have elected me as the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Biju Legislative Party”.
Patnaik also announced the new post of Prasanna Acharya as the Deputy Leader of the BJD in the legislature, Pramila Mallik as the Chief Whip and Pratap Keshari Deb as the Deputy Chief Whip of the BJD.
It’s worth mentioning that Surama Padhy, a Senior BJP leader and Ranpur MLA, submitted her nomination papers for the position of Speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly on Wednesday. Padhy was accompanied by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, Deputy Chief Ministers KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida when she submitted her nomination papers to Dasarathi Satpathy, the Secretary of the Odisha Legislative Assembly. Previously, the BJP legislature Party had unanimously agreed on Padhy as their choice for the position of Speaker.