The sports and youth services department in a notification on July 19 said that the ‘Biju Patnaik Sports Award’ that was instituted in 2001-02 has been renamed as ‘Odisha Rajya Krida Samman’
The only Lok Sabha constituency of Odisha that did not fall to the massive sympathy wave for Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 election, coastal Kendrapara has always been an important seat for anti-Congress politics in the state.
The fresh demand to award Bharat Ratna to former Odisha CM Biju Patnaik comes six days ahead of his birth anniversary, which coincides with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state