Political Career

Samal’s first elected office, contested as a student associated with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. It is the documented beginning of his political life, and the source of the organisational grounding that characterises everything after it.

Samal took charge of the state unit on 14 November 1999, succeeding Jual Oram, and held it until 18 May 2004, when the office returned to Oram. News agency accounts describe the period as two terms — November 1999 to October 2000, and October 2000 to May 2004 — and it is on that basis that his current term is described as his fourth.

The tenure coincided with the BJP’s entry into government in Odisha as the Biju Janata Dal’s coalition partner. Leading the organisation and holding a parliamentary seat at the same time was the working pattern of these years.

Elected by the members of the Odisha Legislative Assembly and seated on 4 April 2000. He resigned the seat on 23 May 2004 after winning election to the Assembly itself — membership of both houses at once is not permitted. Rudra Narayan Pany succeeded him in the seat.

Won at the 2004 state election, in his home district of Bhadrak. He succeeded Manas Ranjan Mallik and was succeeded in 2009 by Rajendra Kumar Das. Dhamnagar has since been regarded as one of the BJP’s stronger seats in the district; the party also held it in 2019 and retained it at a by-election in 2022.

This remains the only term Samal has served in the Odisha Assembly.

Sworn in on 18 May 2004 in the coalition ministry headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, holding two departments simultaneously until December 2008. The Revenue portfolio in Odisha carries land records, land administration, revenue courts and the state’s disaster relief machinery; Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare carries the public distribution system, procurement and consumer protection.

Appointed on 24 March 2023, succeeding Samir Mohanty, after fourteen years without state office. The appointment placed him in charge of the state organisation roughly fourteen months before the 2024 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. The party’s result in those elections is the outcome most closely associated with the tenure.

Under the party’s ‘Sangathan Parv’ organisational election process, Samal filed the only nomination on 7 July 2025. Objections were reviewed at 10 a.m. the following day and the result declared at 11 a.m. at the state headquarters in Bhubaneswar, with Sanjay Jaiswal, Member of Parliament from Bihar, acting as the party’s central observer. Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida and the state in-charge Vijay Pal Singh Tomar attended.

By the news-agency count this is his fourth term leading the Odisha unit.

Nominated by the BJP alongside the sitting member Sujeet Kumar; nominations were filed in March 2026. Results were declared on 16 March 2026, with four members returned from Odisha: Samal and Kumar for the BJP, Dilip Ray as a BJP-supported independent, and Santrupt Misra for the Biju Janata Dal. Samal assumed office on 3 April 2026, succeeding Mamata Mohanta, and took the oath on 6 April.