Bhubaneshwar: Biju Janata Dal (BJD) supremo Naveen Patnaik today announced that Ritarani Sahu, widow of the late Congress MLA Subal Sahu, would be the party’s candidate in the Bijepur Assembly byelection. The announcement was made after Patnaik met party leaders at the BJD headquarters in Bhubaneswar today.

Though the induction of Subal Sahu’s family into the BJD was opposed by local leaders, Naveen Patnaik preempted a revolt in the party by announcing Ritarani’s candidature in the byelection.

The announcement came as a surprise to senior BJD leaders as they were not consulted. However, Rajya Sabha MP Prasanna Acharya said: “there is no resentment” and dismissed it as a media creation.

Ritarani Sahu, her son Sumit and about 3,000 Congress workers joined the BJD on Sunday in the presence of the chief minister. The Subal Sahu family’s admission into the BJD and Ritarani’s candidature is a rebuff to the other ticket aspirants, which included former MLA Ashok Panigrahi. Sources said Panigrahi is considering joining the BJP to contest the bypoll.

Subal Sahu was elected to the Odisha Legislative Assembly for three consecutive times from Bijepur in the 2004, 2009 and 2014 election. He defeated Prasanna Acharya in the 2014 Assembly polls. Panigrahi contested the 2014 election as an Independent after he was not given a ticket by the BJD. He polled 19,000 votes resulting in the defeat of Acharya.