Special Correspondent

BHUBANESWAR: As Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik released his party’s manifesto seeking people’s support, two of his main detractors – former Rajya Sabha MP Dilip Ray and former Minister Bijoy Mohapatra – declared a war against him on Friday and vowed to prevent him from getting re-elected for the third consecutive term.

Mr. Ray and Mr. Mohapatra, who were formally welcomed to the Bharatiya Janata Party at the party headquarters here, said that they had played a key role in making Mr. Patnaik the president of the BJD and now they would make all out efforts to expose his inefficient government before the public in the run-up to the polls.

Nominations

The two leaders who reached the BJP office by coming in an impressive procession were welcomed into the party by the party’s State unit president Suresh Pujari and several senior leaders.

Meanwhile, 10 prospective candidates filed their nomination papers for different Parliamentary constituencies and 76 persons filed their nomination papers for Assembly elections as filing of nomination papers entered its fifth day on Friday.

Prominent among those who filed their nomination papers for Lok Sabha polls during the day include Jual Oram of the BJP for Sundargarh, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo of the BJP for Bolangir and Parsuram Majhi of BJP for Nabarangpur seat.

Wait in vain

On the other hand, the ticket aspirants waited in vain during the day as no fresh list of candidates was released by nay of the major parties such as the Congress, BJP and BJD.

Till late in the evening, the Congress had not announced the name of the candidates for any of the 10 Lok Sabha seats and 70 Assembly segments that were scheduled to go to the polls in the first phase on April 16.

According to sources in the Congress, the All-India Congress Committee had not been able to release the list of the candidates so far as several senior leaders who were camping in New Delhi were trying to push of the names of friends and relatives for different Lok Sabha and Assembly seats.