TNI Bureau: With BJP scripting history in Odisha, by forming the first government, Pravati Parida of the saffron party also made a record as she became the first female deputy chief minister of the state.
The 57-year-old, who won from the Nimapara assembly seat in Puri district, was sworn-in as one of the two deputy chief ministers of the state yesterday. While six-time Patnagarh MLA Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo took oath as the other deputy cm, four-time Keonjhar MLA Mohan Charan Majhi was sworn-in as the CM.
With this, Pravati Parida got her due after long struggle as she had unsuccessfully contested three elections. In, 2009 election, she contested as an Independent candidate and had polled only 6,820 votes. In 2014 and 2019, she contested again from the same seat as a BJP candidate but lost both the elections to Samir Ranjan Dash, who was fielded by BJD. She had got 57321 votes in 2014 and 59152 votes in 2019.
However, in 2024, she won the election with a margin of 4588 votes. While she polled 95,430 votes, her close contender Dillip Kumar Nayak of Biju Janata Dal managed to get 90842 votes. She managed to win the seat after Samir joined the BJP after being denied the ticket by BJD.
Pravati Parida completed her LLB course from Bhubaneswar’s Utkal University in 1995 and enrolled as an advocate in the Odisha High Court. Later, she also completed her M.A. in Public Administration in 2005 from the same University before beginning her political career. She was also the president of BJP’s women wing in Odisha.