Apparently unable to meet with the mounting poll expenses, a former Congress MLA in Odisha has disposed of a piece of ancestral land to generate resources for her doctor-turned politician daughter to fight the Assembly election.
Debendra Sharma, who represented the Aul Assembly constituency in Kendrapara district from 2014 to 2019, sold off his five decimal homestead land in his native village recently.
“My daughter Dr Debasmita Sharma (28) is fighting the poll against money, muscle power and the corrupt system from the seat where people had earlier elected me and my father as MLA. We are finding it tough to meet with poll expenses given the fact that rival candidates are spending heavily for campaigning”, Sharma said.
”Our party is lying low as far as monetary resources are concerned. The Modi-led government has unleashed the Income Tax department to freeze our party’s accounts. Whatever the party has provided to my daughter for campaigning is very much on the lower side. Therefore under compelling circumstances, I have sold a homestead plot in the village, ”he said.
His daughter was a doctor in a government-run hospital, he said.
” Following the footsteps of me and her grandfather, she quit job to enter into public life and is contesting the poll. She is drawing very good responses from voters during campaigning. I am quite hopeful that voters will repose trust upon her,” he concluded.
Doctor-turned-politician Debasmita is pitted against BJD’s Pratap Keshari Deb (a cabinet minister in Naveen Patnaik government) and BJP’s Krushna Chandra Panda.
The Congress contestant Debasmita, who was busy with poll campaigning, could not be contacted despite several attempts.