Bhubaneswar: Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Chief Sarat Patnaik Monday said that in the first phase, the party will announce names of 70 candidates March 1 for the upcoming Assembly polls.
In a new initiative, for the selection of party candidates for both the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats, Odisha Congress for the first time invited applications from interested candidates online with the launching of a portal called ‘Project Pragaman”.
Patnaik disclosed that 3,000 applicants have applied for Assembly seats while 700 applications have been received for the Lok Sabha seats.
A 23-member Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) has been formed to finalise the tickets from the aspirants. The PEC will recommend these names of party candidates to the AICC for approval, Pattnaik said.
Meanwhile, another former Congress MLA, third in the series, in the past week, quit the party Monday. Sources said Nabin Chandra Narayan Das who was elected to State Assembly in 1995 and held the position of Minister of state for Panchayati Raj, Commerce and School and Mass Education had announced his resignation from the party Monday.
Earlier, two former Congress MLAs- Nihar Ranjan Mohananda from western Odisha and Anshuman Mohanty from coastal Odisha had resigned from the primary membership of the party.
While Mahananda was elected from Attabira (SC) Assembly seat in 2009 Assembly elections, Anshuman had successfully contested the Rajnagar Assembly seat in 2014 Assembly elections.
Anshuman had also resigned from the post of Kendrapara District Congress Committee President. He had later joined the ruling BJD.
UNI