Congress names old war horses for LS polls in Odisha

Bhubaneswa: The Congress on Saturday chose several veteran leaders as it announced the names of nine more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Odisha.

The party also nominated a fresher like NSUI Odisha unit president Yasir Nawaj, for the prestigious Bhubaneswar parliamentary constituency.

Nawaj has been pitted against BJP’s sitting MP Aparajita Sarangi and BJD’s Manmath Routray.

The party also named former union minister Srikanta Jena to fight from the Balasore seat. Jena, a four-time Lok Sabha MP, recently returned to Congress after a gap of five years.

The Congress expelled him in January 2019 for 'anti-party' activities. After being sacked from Congress, Jena launched Samajika Nyay Abhiyan, a non-political platform that advocated social justice movement.

Jena will fight against BJP nominee and sitting MP Pratap Sarangi in the Balsore LS seat. The BJD has nominated Lekhashree Samantisnghar from there after she quit the saffron camp and joined the ruling party.

The Congress also has named Ananta Prasad Sethi for Bhadrak and Rabindra Kumar Sethy for Jagatsinghpur Lok Sabha seats. The party has chosen Sidharth Swarup Das for Kendrapara and Suchitra Mohanty for Puri.

Mohan Hembram is the Congress candidate from Keonjhar LS seat while Anchal Das is the party candidate from Jajpur constituency.

The party has also decided to field Sashmita Behera from Dhenkanal Lok Sabha seat.

With these, the party has so far named candidates for 17 of the 21 Lok Sabha candidates in the state.