Bhubaneswar, Mar 26: BJP today declared its candidate for Pipili bypoll and nominated Ashrit Pattnayak as its candidate.

The last day for filling nomination paper is March 30. Scrutiny will be held on March 31. The last date for withdrawal of nomination papers is April 3. Polling will be held on April 17 and votes will be counted on May 2.

In 2014 elections, Ashrit contested as an Independent and got 18,000 votes. In 2019, Ashrit fought on a BJP ticket and had got 72,731 votes.

The bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting BJD MLA Pradeep Kumar Maharathy on October 4 in 2020.