Hours after Sucharita Mohanty returned her Lok Sabha ticket, the Congress on Saturday named Jay Narayan Patnaik as it’s new candidate from Puri parliamentary constituency in Odisha.
In a press statement released late on Saturday night, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said that Patnaik’s candidature has been approved by party president Mallikarjun Kharge.
“Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge approved the candidature of Jay Narayan Patnaik (in place of Sucharita Mohanty) as party candidate from the Puri parliamentary constituency for the Lok Sabha elections,” the statement read.
The development came hours after Mohanty announced that she has returned the Congress’ ticket due to denial of funding by the party.
“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.