Congress holds seat-sharing talks with Odisha JMM

Bhubaneswar: Congress leaders held a meeting with functionaries of the JMM’s Odisha unit on Sunday and discussed the sharing of seats for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, which are held simultaneously in the State.

The closed-door meeting was attended by JMM’s State president Anjani Soren, its Odisha unit in charge Shivaji Moulik, Congress general secretary in-charge of Odisha Ajoy Kumar and State Congress president Sarat Pattanayak, among others.

The leaders of the two parties held initial discussions on seat sharing for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. At that meeting, Soren told Congress leaders that she would speak to her brother and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, besides the central committee of JMM, about the seat-sharing talks in Odisha. Another round of discussion will be held on January 10, where it is likely to be finalised which party will fight on how many seats in the State, sources said.

Discussions were also held about Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Odisha as a part of the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’. The JMM’s best performance so far in the State has been in the 2004 Assembly elections, in which it won four seats. The party drew a blank in the 2019 Assembly elections, but it has a significant presence in Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh and parts of Keonjhar district, since the years of the Jharkhand movement. These districts were part of its ‘’greater Jharkhand’’ demand.

The Congress is part of the Hemant Soren government in neighbouring Jharkhand.