Manmohan Samal was on Tuesday appointed as the Odisha unit president of rulling BJP.
The announcement of the reappointment of Samal was done by BJP’s central election observer Sanjay Jaiswal in the presence of senior leaders at the party’s state headquarters in Bhubaneswar today.
As 65-year-old Samal was the lone leader to file nomination for the post of the president of Odisha BJP, he was elected to the position unopposed, Jaiswal said.
Following the declaration of his victory, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, his council of ministers, BJP national vice-president Baijayant Jay Panda, party MPs, MLAs, and senior functionaries felicitated Samal at the party headquarters.
“Heartfelt congratulations and best wishes to Shri Manmohan Samal on being re-elected as the State President of Odisha BJP. Your steadfast leadership, astute organizational skills, and immense dedication to the workers have given BJP a new identity in Odisha. I firmly believe that under your leadership in the coming times, the BJP organization will become even stronger and will be inspiring for the prosperous future of Odisha,” said CM Majhi in a post on X.
“It was a privilege to join the felicitation ceremony at the BJP State Office in Bhubaneswar today, celebrating the reappointment of Shri Manmohan Samal as the State President of BJP, Odisha. His enduring commitment to the party and the people reflects a spirit of leadership rooted in experience, conviction, and purpose. I extend my warmest congratulations and best wishes as he takes forward this mantle yet again, with renewed vigour and vision. I have every confidence that under his guidance, our organisation will continue to grow in strength, unity, and service—charting new milestones in Odisha’s political journey,” Odisha’s Deputy CM Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo wrote in a post on X.
This will be Samal’s second consecutive term and fourth term altogether in the top position of the party in the state. Samal earlier three terms were from November 1999 to October 2000, October 2000 to May 2004, and March 2023 to July 2025.
Born on April 15, 1959, Samal is from Bhadrak district and belongs to the OBC community, which constitutes more than 50 per cent of the state’s population.
He joined politics as a student and was elected the students’ union president of the Bhadrak College in 1979 as a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). He rose through the ranks and was made a minister in the BJD-BJP coalition government headed by Naveen Patnaik in the early 2000s. He held several portfolios, including revenue and disaster management, and food supplies and consumer welfare.
He was then an MLA from the Dhamnagar constituency.
BJP insiders said that Samal’s reappointment for a record fourth term as state party president serves as a reward from the central leadership. This recognition comes for his pivotal role in leading the party to power in Odisha last year, unseating the BJD government after 24 years.
Appointed state president on an ad-hoc basis in 2023, just a year before the elections, Samal’s swift efforts secured 20 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats for the BJP in the state and an absolute majority to form the government, according to the insiders.
The BJP won 78 seats in the 147-member assembly, while Naveen Patnaik’s BJD secured 51 seats. The Congress took 14 seats, CPI(M) one, and three independent candidates also emerged victorious.
Despite these significant party-wide gains, Samal personally lost the assembly election from the Chandabali seat in the Bhatrak district.
