The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Thursday rewarded another turncoat.

The state BJP vice-president Lekhashree Samantsinghar, once a bitter critic of the Naveen Patnaik government who joined the BJD on April 7, was on Thursday made the party’s candidate from the Balasore Lok Sabha seat.

BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday made the announcement while releasing the fourth list of candidates for Assembly and Lok Sabha seats. With this announcement, the BJD has announced the names of candidates for all 21 Lok Sabha seats. Naveen also announced the names of candidates for another 9 Assembly seats.

Lekhashree, once an acolyte of Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, has been pitted against BJP’s Pratap Chandra Sarangi, a former Union minister. The Congress is yet to announce its Lok Sabha candidate from the Balasore Lok Sabha seat.

However, given her harsh comments on chief minister Naveen and the chief minister’s office, her joining the party at the last moment and being rewarded with a ticket has not gone down well with the BJD cadres.

“With this, it has been proved that there are no enemies in politics. Besides all talk of ideology is all nonsense. People are being made fools only,“ said Girija Shankar Das, a political observer.

Despite all opposition, Naveen reposed faith in Ananta Narayan Jena from the Bhubaneswar (central) Assembly seat again. From Paradip, Naveen has fielded Gitanjali Routray, daughter-in-law of former minister late Damodar Rout. Late Rout’s son Sambit Routray was denied a ticket this time.

With this announcement, the BJD has released the names for 117 Assembly seats of 147 Assembly seats.