The BJP won 74 seats in the 147-member Odisha assembly and was leading in four more seats, the Election Commission of India.
P C Padhi became headlines in Odisha after a media expose on funds received by the BJD became known.
The BJP's vote share in Cuttack went up from 9 per cent in 2009 to 38 per cent in 2019.
The results for the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha assembly elections were declared on Tuesday.
The JD-U has five members in the Rajya Sabha, including deputy chairman Harivansh whose fate now hangs in the balance as he may have to resign since his party has moved out of the ruling alliance.
The Naveen Patnaik-led party bagged 112 of the 146 assembly seats despite the Modi wave in the country.
"There is a need for a name change. What did Ravenshaw, after whom the university is named, do during the famine," the minister had asked,
The Shiromani Akali Dal skipped the meeting, besides the Aam Aadmi Party, the TRS and the BJD.
'The BJP is not as mighty a political force in Odisha as it is made out to be.'
Panda met BJP chief Amit Shah and joined the party at its office in the national capital.
Patnaik's decision would mean that the ruling BJD will field women candidates for at least seven out of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The Biju Janata Dal on Wednesday announced its support for the candidature of Bharatiya Janata Party's Ashwini Vaishnaw in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in Odisha
KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida were made deputy chief ministers of the state, he said.
According to an order issued by the director general of police YB Khurania on Wednesday the five police personnel have been suspended on charge of gross misconduct.
The 78-year-old Naveen is on the cusp of creating history. He must win the forthcoming Assembly polls to become India's longest-serving chief minister, a record held by Sikkim's Pawan Kumar Chamling.
India's Parliament is set to begin its Budget session on Friday, with opposition parties poised to demand a discussion on the alleged mismanagement of the Maha Kumbh festival in Prayagraj, where 30 pilgrims died in a stampede. The opposition also accused the government of politicising parliamentary committees and pushing its agenda through its majority. The session will start with President Droupadi Murmu addressing both houses of Parliament. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Saturday for the eighth consecutive time.
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Odisha government has constituted a fact-finding committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a Nepali student at KIIT University and the subsequent protests by students. The three-member panel will investigate the institute's handling of the situation, including the suspension of students seeking justice. The incident has sparked outrage and raised concerns about the safety of international students at the institute. The Nepal government has threatened to stop issuing no objection certificates for students studying in Odisha if the situation is not resolved.
Pandian said his only intention to join politics was to assist Patnaik and that is why he did not contest the elections.
The ruling Biju Janata Dal in Odisha on Wednesday appeared to be sending signals to the Bharatiya Janata Party over its possible outside support to a National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.
While Dilip Tirkey is the ruling Biju Janata Dal candidate for the Sundergarh (ST) Lok Sabha constituency, his junior and former India hockey captain, Prabodh Tirkey is the Congress candidate from the Talsara (ST) assembly segment also in Sundergarh district.
The parties which gave chief ministers and sent scores of MPs to Parliament, drew a blank this time.
A day after snapping ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party at the state level, the Biju Janata Dal on Monday sent mixed signals on its strategy for the Lok Sabha polls, saying it is 'still part of the National Democratic Alliance'. "The BJD is misleading all by saying it is part of the NDA. How can a party be a member of the NDA while forging pre-poll alliance with the Left parties and the Nationalist Congress Party," asked BJP's youth wing leader Dharmendra Pradhan.
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
The opposition caused repeated disruptions in Parliament Friday over the NEET paper leak issue, with both Houses being adjourned for the day without transacting much business apart from the Rajya Sabha taking up the Motion of Thanks for the President's address amid protests including by the Biju Janata Dal, which almost always supported the BJP in the previous Lok Sabha.
Modi, in his rally just days ahead of the last phase of the Lok Sabha election, also said that "well-wishers of Naveen babu are worried over his deteriorating health condition."
In a major blow to the National Democratic Alliance, the Biju Janata Dal announced on Saturday that it had split from the Bharatiya Janata Dal, over failure to reach a seat sharing deal for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls."The BJP-BJD will contest separately," Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told reporters, adding that 'winnability' was the reason behind the break up in the decade-old alliance.
The CPI-M is upbeat in its quest to form a Third Front and struck a pre-poll alliance with the BJD in Orissa within a day after the ruling state party snapped ties with longtime ally BJP.
'Elections are fought to win.' 'In our party, the leadership takes the final decision, and our leaders are very clear about it.'
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is likely to get a majority in the Rajya Sabha in April this year, once the remaining six vacancies under the nominated category are filled and those newly elected take oath.
Despite declining by three percentage points in 2022-23 (FY23) compared to FY19, Odisha's unemployment rate remains higher than the average in India.
Sucharita Mohanty, the daughter of former Congress MP Brajamohan Mohanty, in a mail to Venugopal on Friday claimed that her campaign was hit hard because the party denied her funding.
Opposition members in Rajya Sabha on Thursday accused the government of imposing Hindi by bringing new bills with titles only in that language, a charge the treasury bench contested while alleging they were stuck with a colonial mindset.
Two bills that lay down the mechanism to hold simultaneous elections were introduced in the Lok Sabha after a fiery debate on Tuesday, with the opposition terming the move 'dictatorial' and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal asserting that the legislation would not tamper with the powers enjoyed by states.
'Forget stones & eggs, they can't cow me down even if they use bullet,' Panda tweeted.
Hinting that it was open to aligning with the Third Front after the Lok Sabha polls, the BJD has said that it will not support either a Congress-led or a Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre.
Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Sunday ordered a judicial inquiry into the alleged torture of an Army officer and the sexual assault of his fiance at a police station in Bhubaneswar.
Amid the political blame game over Bengal's potato ban, which led to shortages in Jharkhand and Odisha, Uttar Pradesh farmers are the unlikely winners.
Secretary general of the Biju Janata Dal Damodar Rout talks to Dilip Satapathy on why his party snapped the decade-old ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the politicial options before the BJD.
In a bid to suppress dissidence, Biju Janata Dal supremo and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday suspended Jagneswar from the regional outfit on charge of anti-party activities.
