Pradhan visits Puri temple after returning to electoral fray

Bhubaneswar : Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who has returned to the electoral fray after a gap of 15 years, on Monday visited Jagannath temple in Puri and sought blessings from the deities. Pradhan has been named as the BJP candidate from Sambalpur.

Pradhan said with blessings of Lord Jagannath, the BJP will form government in Odisha and retain power at the Centre. The BJP on Sunday announced the names of its candidates for 18 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in Odisha. The sitting MPs who have been retained are Jual Oram (Sundargarh), Pratap Chandra Sarangi (Balasore), Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo (Bolangir) and Aparajita Sarangi (Bhubaneswar). The other BJP candidates are Ananta Nayak (Keonjhar), Abhimanyu Sethi (Bhadrak), Rudra Pany (Dhenkanal), Baijayant Panda (Kendrapara), Balabhadra Majhi (Nabarangpur), Bibhu Tarai (Jagatsinghpur ), Sambit Patra (Puri), Pradeep Panigrahy (Berhampur) and Kaliram Majhi (Koraput).