Bhubaneswar, Dec 22 (IANS) Former union minister Jual Oram was Tuesday elected the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Orissa unit, without any contest.
Oram is currently one of the BJP’s national vice presidents.

The party’s central election observer Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi declared Oram elected after no one else filed nomination papers for the post.

Oram, 48, has been active in politics since 1990. Elected twice to the state assembly and three times to the Lok Sabha, he was a cabinet minister from 1999 to 2004 in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Oram also headed the BJP’s state unit twice in the past - 1997-99 and 2004-06.

He will take charge of his new assignment Wednesday.

Oram’s election came hours after M.A. Kharavela Swain, a senior leader of the party in the state, resigned from the party, protesting “interference” by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in party affairs.

Bureaucrat-turned-politician Swain, who was a member of the 12th, 13th and 14th Lok Sabha, announced the end of his 20-year-long relationship with the BJP at a press conference here.