In a blow to the Congress, its Lok Sabha candidate from Odisha’s Puri parliamentary constituency Sucharita Mohanty has returned the party’s ticket, citing denial of election funds by AICC Odisha in-charge Dr Ajoy Kumar.
“I have returned the ticket because the party was not able to fund me,” Ms Mohanty told ANI.
Another reason she cited was that the party has fielded ‘weak’ candidates on some of the seven Assembly segments under the Puri Lok Sabha constituency.
“Another reason is that in some of the seats in seven Assembly segments, winnable candidates have not been given the ticket. Instead, some weak candidates got the tickets. I could not contest like this….,” she said.
The Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Odisha will be held simultaneously. The last date for filing nominations for Lok Sabha polls in Odisha is May 6.
Puri is among Odisha’s high profile seats, with the BJP fielding its firebrand national spokesperson Sambit Patra against former Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik, who is contesting on BJD’s ticket.
The development comes less than a week after Congress party’s Indore Lok Sabha candidate Akshay Kanti Bam withdrew his nomination from the polls, practically serving the seat on a plate to the BJP candidate and sitting MP Shankar Lalwani.
Bam (45) reached the Indore Collector Office along with BJP MLA Ramesh Mendola, a close confidant of minister Kailash Vijaywargiya, and withdrew his papers.
Indore, the largest constituency in the state in terms of number of voters, has 25.13 lakh electorate where the BJP has given a slogan of winning by a margin of 8 lakh votes this time.
