Cong Picks Ajit Mangaraj For Pipili After Yudhistir Samantray Declines Ticket

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) on Thursday said that the central election committee of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has announced candidates for three more Assembly seats in the state.

Though the committee has not come up with a notification to this effect, the OPCC confirmed that names of Ajit Mangaraj, Swagatika Patnaik and Basant Kumar Maharana have been finalised for Pipili, Khurda and Khandapada seats respectively.

Among the three candidates, Swagatika has replaced Dilip Srichandan and Basant has replaced Binodini Mohanty, while Mangaraj will replace Yudhistir Samantray, who was initially allotted the party’s ticket for the Pipili seat. The former Pipili MLA had on Wednesday announced that he will not contest elections this time. He further said that he will neither join the BJD nor the BJP and also not contest as an Independent candidate.

Samantray had also come down heavily on OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik, alleging that he demanded Rs 5 crore from each candidate for a ticket to contest the polls.