The chief minister's statement is significant as several non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties are trying to forge unity in a bid to form a grand alliance to take on the ruling party in the Lok Sabha elections this year.
Jha will contest against National democratic Alliance's nominee Harivansh of the Janata Dal-United.
The BJD not only supported the BJP in Parliament on different issues over the last few years but also helped Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw get elected to Rajya Sabha in 2019 and 2024.
The fight would become more interesting as both candidates hail from Bihar, where the assembly elections are to be held soon, making it effectively a JD-U versus RJD contest.
The total income of national and regional parties from unknown sources for 2020-21 stands at Rs 690.67 crore.
The imbroglio in Parliament over a joint parliamentary probe into the alleged irregularities in the 2G spectrum allocation continued for the ninth day, with the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha adjourning till noon following uproar by the opposition parties. Even before Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar could take her seat, opposition members including those from the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena, Biju Janata Dal, Janatal Dal United and Samajwadi Party trooped to the well.
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 assembly has a strength of 147 MLAs while there are 21 Lok Sabha MP seats in the state.
The Congress and AAP had fought the Lok Sabha polls together in Delhi, while they contested separately in Punjab.
Rup Narayan Das reveals the towering Odisha leader's role in improving national security after the 1962 War with China.
All the three leaders expressed their best wishes to her, sources said.
Voting began on Thursday in the by-election to seven assembly constituencies in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
With Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Pyari Mohan Mohapatra suspended from the ruling Biju Janata Dal, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday said he was not adverse to taking back certain leaders who had quit the party earlier.
Chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to get reservation for women in legislatures promises to shape the political discourse ahead of key state polls and Lok Sabha elections, and a parliamentary approval to the long-contested proposal will be used by the Bharatiya Janata Party to burnish his credentials as a decisive leader.
Parties have decided to take this action against a government that, a senior leader alleged, has been routinely "insulting the constitution."
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
The counting began at 8 am to decide the fate of the candidates contesting the polls, among whom all eyes will be on Dimple Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and the wife of Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav in October.
'The Odisha government has changed the image of the state by making it a sporting hub of the country with high performance centres, state-of-the-art training facilities and hosting big tournaments. The sports loving people of Sundergarh and Odisha will not forget this while voting.'
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary board on Tuesday named Droupadi Murmu, the party's tribal leader from Odisha, as the ruling National Democratic Alliance's candidate for the presidential election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has designated party general secretary Ananth Kumar and senior leader S S Ahluwalia to assist P A Sangma in the Presidential election management.
By almost unilaterally announcing her party's support for the candidature of former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma for the President's post, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary J Jayalalithaa has queered the pitch and made it that much more difficult the search for a common opposition candidate.
Hitting out at the Biju Janata Dal government over the abduction of a tribal MLA, the opposition Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party in Odisha on Saturday accused it of being hand in glove with Maoists and pushing the state into anarchy by ignoring Centre's advisories.
A meeting of the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday witnessed a verbal slugfest between its chairman Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and MPs from the ruling National Democratic Alliance as the Congress leader sought to raise the issue of COVID-19 vaccination drive for discussion in the panel, sources said.
The announcement came on a day that marks the third anniversary of the Naveen Patnaik-led government's fifth tenure in the state.
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.
The BJD's candidate selection was based on several permutation and combination, a party leader said adding that apart from being a green horn and a woman, Barsha will get sympathy vote.
The ruling Biju Janata Dal candidate Ranendra Pratap Swain on Wednesday defeated his nearest Congress candidate Suresh Chandra Mohapatra by 47,390 votes in the by-election for Athgarh assembly seat in Odisha.
Mr Pradhan's understanding of realpolitik and organisational dynamics makes him the ultimate party man, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The Biju Janata Dal on Tuesday opposed the no-confidence motion against the government on the Manipur violence, saying what happened in the state is due to "legacy issues" running back several decades.
A group of Indian MPs underwent a crash course at the prestigious Yale University of the United States, which was specially tailored for them incorporating issues like global economic governance, counter-insurgency efforts in Afghanistan and political developments in the Middle East.
Samal also claimed that the Odisha BJP was confident of winning both the polls.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
India Against Corruption member Arvind Kejriwal said that along with the BJP and Congress, the Communist Party of India-Marxist and Biju Janata Dal also played a major role in the plunder of the natural resource.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Wednesday accused the Biju Janata Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government in Orissa of working under "pressure" from missionary elements and the Centre to protect real "killers" of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and demanded a central law to ban religious conversion.
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
Around 100 people including policemen were injured, as Congress workers protesting against the Biju Janata Dal government on Thursday tried to gherao the Odisha Assembly.
Director General of Police Prakash Mishra claimed that nearly 60 policemen were injured in stone-throwing and violence by the rallyists but was unable to give the exact number of demonstrators who sustained injuries