BJP’s Surama Padhy set to be Odisha speaker

BHUBANESWAR: Surama Padhy, a two-time BJP MLA from Ranpur, is all set to become speaker of Odisha Legislative Assembly. While BJP named Padhy as its speaker candidate on Wednesday, BJD has not fielded anyone paving way for her unanimous election scheduled on Thursday.
After Padhy filed her nomination, parliamentary affairs minister Mukesh Mahaling said, "Nobody else has filed nomination from any other party.Chief minister Mohan Majhi spoke to BJD president and former chief minister Naveen Patnaik for his support for Padhy. Naveen has conveyed his party's support."
Padhy (63), one of the five BJP women MLAs, served as a minister of state for cooperation in the BJP-BJD coalition govt from 2004 to 2009.
Earlier, she served as the national president of BJP Mahila Morcha from 2000 to 2002 and chief of the Morcha's state unit from 1998 to 2000. Padhy had lost the assembly elections in 2009, 2014 and 2019. In the recent election, she defeated Satyanarayan Pradhan of BJD by a margin of 15,544 votes.
A known face in the state BJP, Padhy joined the party in 1988 and is quite active at the ground level.
While CM Mohan Majhi was the proposer in her nomination papers, the parliamentary affairs minister supported her candidature. Earlier, BJP legislature party gave its nod to Padhy's elevation to the post of speaker.
Padhy is only the second woman to become assembly speaker after BJD's Pramila Mallik.