Manmohan Samal Poised To Retain Odisha BJP President Post, Formal Announcement On Tuesday
Samal’s continuation at the helm comes at a critical juncture for the Odisha BJP, which under his stewardship secured a historic mandate in the 2024 general and assembly elections
Bhubaneswar: Manmohan Samal is set to continue as the president of the Odisha unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with a formal announcement expected on Tuesday. The 66-year-old leader, a seasoned organisational hand and veteran of the Sangh Parivar, filed his nomination as the lone candidate for the top party post on Monday.
The nomination process, held at the state BJP headquarters in Bhubaneswar, saw Samal submitting his papers around 2.50 pm before returning officer and senior party leader Pratap Sarangi, in the presence of Sanjay Jaiswal, the central observer appointed by BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda to oversee the state presidential election.
“Only one nomination — that of Manmohan Samal — has been received for the post of state president. The official announcement will be made tomorrow,” Jaiswal told reporters after the nomination process concluded.
Samal’s continuation at the helm comes at a critical juncture for the Odisha BJP, which under his stewardship secured a historic mandate in the 2024 general and assembly elections. The party dethroned the 24-year-old Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government, winning a majority in the state assembly and bagging 20 of the state’s 21 Lok Sabha seats — a feat unprecedented in Odisha’s political history for the BJP.
A native of Bhadrak district in north Odisha, Samal has been a prominent figure in state politics for over three decades. Starting from student activism, he was first appointed BJP’s state president in 1999 and continued in that role till 2004. Though he lost the 2000 assembly election, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha and later returned to the state assembly in 2004. Subsequently, he served as Odisha’s revenue and disaster management minister during the BJP-BJD coalition government that lasted from 2000 to 2009.
In March 2023, with an eye on the crucial 2024 elections, the BJP central leadership reposed faith in Samal, appointing him state president for a second term. His leadership during the high-voltage campaign was instrumental in consolidating the party’s position across the state and scripting the BJP’s emergence as Odisha’s principal political force.
Challenges Ahead for Samal
However, with electoral victories behind him, Samal now faces formidable organisational and governance-related challenges.
The first priority is to consolidate the BJP’s hold on the state’s grassroots political structures ahead of the 2027 panchayat and urban local body elections. Despite the BJP’s assembly and Lok Sabha triumph, the BJD retains a significant presence at the local level, having secured over 10 lakh votes more than the BJP in the 2024 assembly polls. The BJD currently controls all 30 district councils under the three-tier panchayati raj system and enjoys dominance in over 90 percent of the state’s urban local bodies. For Samal, bridging this grassroots gap remains a critical task.
The second major responsibility is providing effective organisational guidance and political support to the one-year-old Mohan Charan Majhi-led government, the first BJP government to rule Odisha independently. Except for Deputy Chief Minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo — who previously served as a minister during the 2000-2009 BJD-BJP coalition era — all other ministers, including Chief Minister Majhi, are first-timers in the state cabinet. Steering this relatively inexperienced council of ministers and ensuring policy coherence and administrative efficiency will be a delicate balancing act for Samal.
Moreover, the government has yet to fill several key positions, including chairpersons and presidents of state-run corporations and boards. This delay has led to discontent among party leaders, especially those who contested and lost the recent assembly and parliamentary polls and are awaiting political rehabilitation. The absence of leadership in these institutions has also affected their functional delivery, a matter that the party organisation, under Samal’s leadership, must address promptly to maintain administrative momentum and political goodwill.
As Manmohan Samal readies to formally begin another term at the helm of the Odisha BJP, the party’s immediate future will hinge on how deftly he navigates these organisational and governance challenges while sustaining the electoral gains achieved in 2024.
