Cong names old war horses for LS polls

Bhubaneswar: 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 Nawaz, for the prestigious Bhubaneswar parliamentary constituency. Nawaz has been pitted against BJP’s sitting MP Aparajita Sarangi and BJD’s Manmath Routray.

The party named former Union minister Srikant Jena to fight from Balasore seat. Jena, a four-time Lok Sabha member, recently returned to Congress after a gap of five years. The Congress had 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 Balasore Lok Sabha seat. The BJD has nominated Lekhasri Samantisnghar from there after she quit the BJP and joined the ruling party.

Jena was elected twice to Lok Sabha from Cuttack and once from Kendrapara on Janata Dal ticket. He was last elected from Balasore Lok Sabha seat on Congress ticket.

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 Lok Sabha 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.