Bhubaneswar: The BJP Sunday announced the party candidates for the Odisha assembly by-elections.

Manas Kumar Dutta will be the BJP candidate for Balasore assembly seat while Rajkishore Behera is the candidate for the Tirtol assembly constituency.

The by-elections to the two constituencies arised as the incumbent MLAs expired a couple of months back. While Tirtol was represented by Bishnu Das, Balasore was represented by BJP’s Madan Mohan Dutta. Bishnu Das had won the seat by a margin of over 40,000 votes from his nearest rival Ramakanta Bhoi of BJP. Dutta had won the 2019 elections by a margin of 13, 406 votes defeating the BJD’s sitting MLA Jiban Pradip Das.