Manmohan Samal gets another term as Odisha BJP president

The incumbent President of the Odisha unit of the BJP, Manmohan Samal, was on Tuesday reelected unopposed for the party’s top post. BJP’s central election observer Sanjay Jaiswal announced the reelection of Samal in the presence of senior leaders at the party’s state headquarters in Bhubaneswar.

Samal (65), who will helm the state party’s hierarchy for the third time, was the lone contestant to file the nomination paper. Therefore, his election to the top post was a mere formality.

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Samal emerged as a consensus candidate to head the party yet again as he was largely credited with steering the party to its historic victory in the 2024 elections. The party emerged victorious in 78 of the state’s 147 seats as against the BJD’s 51 seats. With Samal at the helm of affairs, the party routed the BJD from the political firmament winning 20 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats. The BJD drew a blank while Congress managed to open an account winning a single LS seat.

Incidentally, Samal was among the very few leaders who espoused for the BJP to go alone in the 2024 twin polls and managed to impress upon the Central leadership not to stitch an alliance with the BJD.

The resounding victory in the Assembly and the Lok Sabha added to the credibility of Samal, although he suffered a debacle on the personal front by losing the Chandbali assembly seat. Samal earlier served as party president from 1999 to 2004 and from March 2023 till the present day.