Congress changes candidates in five assembly seats in Odisha

Bhubaneswar, May 5 (IANS) Congress on Sunday changed its candidates in five assembly constituencies in Odisha. The party has also declared the candidate for one assembly seat.

The constituencies where the party has changed candidates are — Athagarh (Cuttack district), Athamallik (Angul district), Bari (Jajpur district), Jaleswar (Balasore district) and Puri.

Disgruntled senior leader Sudarshan Das has been nominated for the Jaleswar Assembly seat in place of Debi Prasanna Chand while Uma Ballav Rath has been fielded in the Puri assembly segment replacing Sujit Mahapatra.

Former BJP leader Debasish Nayak was nominated for the Bari assembly seat hours after he joined the Congress party on Saturday. Earlier, the party had nominated Arati Deo for the Bari seat.

Nayak had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party after quitting ruling Biju Janata Dal just two months back.

The Congress has given the ticket to Himanshu Chaulia for the Athmallik constituency in place of his brother Bijayananda Chaulia who is reportedly suffering from some health-related problems.

The party also replaced its Athagarh candidate Maheboob Ahemad Khan and fielded Sudarshan Sahoo in his place.

Meanwhile, Akshaya Acharya has been nominated for the Nilgiri assembly seat.

Congress and the INDIA bloc have so far declared candidates for all the 147 assembly seats in the state.

Notably, the party has fielded Jay Narayan Patnaik from Puri Lok Sabha seat after Sucharita Mohanty returned her ticket citing zero funding by the party for campaigning.

Assembly and Lok Sabha elections will be held simultaneously in Odisha in four phases from May 13 to June 1. The results for both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections will be out on June 4.

–IANS

gyan/uk