Bhubaneswar : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday named former MP Rudra Madhav Ray as its candidate for the Lok Sabha by-poll from Odisha’s Kandhamal constituency.
The polling in the constituency will take place Oct 15.
“Rudra Madhav Ray will be our candidate from Kandhamal. The central election committee of the party has approved his name,” a senior BJP leader told IANS.
The 77-year-old was named the party candidate a day after he joined the BJP.
Ray was a member of the state legislative assembly for three terms between 1990 and 2009 before being elected to the Lok Sabha on a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) ticket in 2009.
The BJD, however, denied him a ticket in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and later suspended him for anti-party activities.
The by-poll in Kandhamal was necessitated following the death of BJD’s Hemendra Chandra Singh.