Bhubaneswar, June 19: BJP's Ranpur MLA Surama Padhy has filed her nomination Wednesday for the post of Speaker of Odisha Legislative Assembly in the presence of Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and Deputy CMs -- K.V. Singh Deo and Pravati Parida.

She was nominated by the saffron party in a meeting earlier in the day. The ruling party MLAs took the call of nominating Padhy in the meeting, which took place in Assembly's Room No. 54.

If elected, she will succeed BJD’s Pramila Mallick as the Speaker of the 17th Assembly. Padhy has won from Ranpur Assembly constituency, beating BJD's Satyanarayan Pradhan by 15,544 votes, in the recently-concluded elections. 

She had won from the constituency in 2004 when BJP had an alliance with the BJD before before facing defeat in next three elections. She was the minister of state for cooperation with independent charge in the Naveen Patnaik-led government. 

Earlier Tuesday, the newly elected members of the Odisha Assembly took oath during a special session. Pro-tem Speaker Ranendra Pratap Swain administered the oath to newly elected members, including the Chief Minister, two deputy CMs among others.

Swain also administered the oath to former CM and BJD President Naveen Patnaik, who is going to play the role of opposition for the first time in his political career.

Notably, all 147 newly elected MLAs were scheduled to take the oath June 18 and 19 while the election for the new Speaker will take place June 20.

Read more: Election news