No Candidate Given Ticket On My Recommendation: Niranjan

Bhubaneswar: In the wake of resentment among aspiring Congress candidates over the allotment of ticket for the General and Assembly elections, president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Niranjan Patnaik on Wednesday made it clear that not a single candidate has been given a ticket on his recommendation.

“The selection of candidates is a concerted decision taken by the party. So far, Congress has given the ticket to 83 new candidates for the ensuing elections. In proportion to the total number of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats, the number of aspirants is much more. Under such circumstances, resentment among the candidates is quite obvious,” Patnaik told the media at the Congress Bhawan here.

He said no one is in a mood to realise his helplessness. “In matters of distribution of party ticket, everybody is angry at me. For me, it is like out of the fire into the frying pan,” Niranjan added.

Talking about the selection of the candidate for the Dharmasala Assembly seat, he said the party had selected Smrutirekha Pahi but later decided to replace her with Kisan Panda. “However, now, the party has changed its decision and retained Smrutirekha. We have managed to convince Kisan about the party’s decision,” he pointed out.

Niranjan further informed that as the nomination papers of the party candidate, Sukanta Tiadi Bhoi have been rejected, the Congress has decided to support Raghav Sethi, the Independent candidate of Jayadev constituency.