BJD announces Pramila Mallik's name as Assembly Speaker candidate

The election for the post of the Odisha assembly speaker will be held on September 22.

Pramila Mallik is currently serving as State Revenue and Disaster Management Minister and will file her nomination on Thursday.

Pramila Mallik is six-time MLA from the Binjharpur Assembly Constituency, first elected in the year 1990 on the Janata Dal ticket.

In the year 2000, she was elected from the Biju Janata Dal. She has also held different portfolios as Cabinet Minister in Naveen Patnaik's Cabinet and Chief whip of the party in the state assembly.

The post has been laying vacant after former speaker Bikram Keshari Arukha was appointed Finance Minister during the last reshuffle of the cabinet by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

After the cabinet led by CM Patnaik was reshuffled earlier this year, former Odisha Speaker Bikram Keshari Arukha was among three new ministers who were sworn into the Odisha cabinet.

Governor Ganeshi Lal administered the oath to the new ministers - Arukha and two senior BJD MLAs Sarada Prashad Nayak and Sudam Marandi in Bhubaneswar in the presence of Patnaik.

The rejig of the Council of Ministers came ahead of next year's Assembly and General Elections.

This was Patnaik's second Cabinet reshuffle in his fifth term as the chief minister of Odisha.

The Cabinet reshuffle was necessitated after Odisha Speaker Arukha and two cabinet ministers had resigned from their respective posts earlier this month citing personal reasons.

Apart from that there was one post lying vacant after the assassination of Health and Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das was assassinated in January. (ANI)