Bhadrak: Congress candidate Baba Harekshruna Sethi on Thursday filed his nomination for the by-election to Dhamnagar Assembly constituency in Odisha’s Bhadrak district.
Accompanied by a battery of senior leaders and a large number of party workers, Sethi went in a procession from the district Congress office at Bhadrak to the collectorate to file the papers for the November 3 bypoll.
Among those who accompanied the party nominee were Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) President Sarat Pattanayak, former PCC chiefs Niranjan Patnaik and Jaydev Jena and legislator Suresh Routray.
Coming down heavily on both BJD and BJP, the PCC president said only Congress is keen to serve people and work for their welfare, while the other two major political parties are interested to remain in power.
Stating that Odisha remains backward and poor because of misrule of BJD for the last 22 years, while the country is witnessing unprecedented rise in the price of essential commodities due to faulty policies adopted by the BJD-leg government at the Centre.
Fed up with BJD and BJP, people of Dhamnagar are supporting Congress and they will ensure the victory of the party candidate in the by-election, he said.
While BJP candidate Suryabanshi Suraj has already filed his nomination for the by-election, the ruling BJD is nominee Abanti Das is likely to file her papers on Friday, the last date for filing nomination.
The voting will be held on November 3 and the counting of votes and announcement of results will be done on November 6.
The bypoll was necessitated following the demise of Suraj’s father Bishnu Sethi, who had won the election from Dhamnagar by a margin of 4625 votes in 2019. While he polled 80,111 votes, Rajendra K Das of BJD got 75,486.
While Manmohan Samal of BJP had won the seat in the 2004 elections, Rajendra Das of BJD was elected from Dhamnagar in 2009 and Muktikanta Mondal of BJD in 2014.
