Bhubaneswar: Congress, which had proclaimed that it would announce tickets by August last year, is yet to complete its candidate selection process. The party has been altering its candidates from various seats until the last moment.
Apparently, all is not well with the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) under the leadership of Niranjan Patnaik. The infighting in the party has risen to a crescendo which has forced the leadership to change candidates for one Lok Sabha and six Assembly seats. Moreover, four candidates nominated to various Assemblies have rejected their candidature.
Even Thursday, on the last day of filing of nomination papers, the party changed candidates for Keonjhar MP seat and two Assembly seats under the particular Parliamentary constituency. The constituency will go to polls April 23.
The party replaced Fakir Mohan Naik with Mohan Hembram for the Keonjhar Lok Sabha constituency. Hembram filed his nomination papers as the Lok Sabha candidate on a Congress ticket for the upcoming polls.
Similarly, Prashant Dalei will now contest the polls instead of Mohan Hembram from Telkoi Assembly seat while Binod Bihari Nayak was nominated to enter the poll arena in place of Gopeswar Nayak from Patana Assembly seat.
Earlier, the grand old party had changed candidates for Hinjili, Sambalpur, Cuttack-Sadar and Digapahandi Assembly seats.
The Congress has fielded Ajit Mangaraj from Pipili, Swagatika Patnaik from Khurda and Basanta Kumar Maharana from Khandapada Assembly seats.
Besides, four party candidates have declined to fight elections. They are: Muktikanta Biswal (Rourkela), Pruthvi Ballabh Patnaik (Begunia), Yudhisthir Samantaray (Pipili) and Bibhu Prasad Tarai from Tirtol seats.
Congress had fielded Yudhisthir Samantaray from Pipili. However, he declared Wednesday that he would not contest the elections alleging mismanagement in the distribution of tickets. Even, Samantaray has alleged that the PCC chief has put tickets on sale for Rs 5 crore.
The party has also failed to stick to the party norm of one family-one ticket. Under pressure from senior leaders, the party has allocated tickets to more than one candidate from some families. Many leaders including state president Niranjan Patnaik, Bhakta Charan Das and Opposition floor leader Narasingha Misha have managed to grab additional tickets for their family members.
Strategic Squeeze
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