Congress Releases Another List Of Candidates For Odisha, Makes Changes In 1 LS, 2 Assembly Seats

Bhubaneswar: The Congress on Sunday released another list of candidates, replacing a Parliamentary and 2 Assembly nominees and nominating Sofia Firdous as MLA candidate from Cuttack-Barabati, for the upcoming polls in Odisha.

The list released by AICC’s Central Election Committee included names of two MP and eight MLA candidates.

Besides nominating senior leader Suresh Mohapatra from the prestigious Cuttack Lok Sabha constituency, the party replaced Dulal Chandra Pradhan with former MP Nagendra Pradhan from Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency.

Mohapatra is the president of the Cuttack city Congress committee. He had earlier unsuccessfully contested Assembly elections twice from Cuttack-Choudwar and a by-election from Athagarh. A former minister in the Naveen Patnaik government, Nagendra had won the Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat in 2014 on a BJD ticket. He joined the Congress after resigning from the regional party on April 25.

The Congress also changed the candidate in two assembly seats – Baripada and Khandapada. It has nominated Pramod Hembram in place of Badal Hembram from Baripada seat while Baijayantimala Mohanty has replaced Manoj Pradhan in Khandapada.

As expected, the AICC approved the name of Sofia Firdous for Barabati-Cuttack Assembly constituency. The OPCC had recommended her name on Saturday after the Supreme Court refused to stay her father and sitting MLA Md Moquim’s conviction in a loan fraud case, dashing his hopes of contesting the elections next month.

The following is the complete list of Congress’ candidates for Assembly seats:

1.    Baripada: Pramod Hembram
2.    Jaleswar: Debi Prasanna Chand
3.    Balasore: Monalisa Lenka
4.    Barchana: Ajay Samal
5.    Pallahara: Fakir Samal
6.    Barabati-Cuttack: Sofia Firdous
7.    Jagatsinghpur: Pratima Mallick
8.    Khandapada: Baijayantimala Mohanty