Cong names candidates for 3 LS, 16 Assembly seats

Bhubaneswar: The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Saturday announced the names of candidates for 16 Assembly and three Lok Sabha constituencies in Odisha. The party, which had earlier declared the names of candidates for 17 out of 21 Lok Sabha seats, announced two new names and changed the aspirant in one constituency.

The party announced the name of Dulal Chandra Pradhan for Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat where Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan is contesting as a BJP candidate and Pranab Prakash Das is the BJD aspirant.

The party named Debakanta Sharma as its aspirant from Aska Lok Sabha seat while it changed its candidate in Keonjhar, where it has nominated Binod Bihari Nayak in place of Mohan Hembram.

In addition to Lok Sabha nominees, the party also announced its candidates for 16 Assembly constituencies. Notable nominations include Amita Biswal for Jharsuguda, Siddharth Routray for Nimapara, and Sipra Mallick for Kendrapara. Sonali Sahoo was nominated for Khurda Assembly segment after recently joining the Congress from the BJP.

Furthermore, the party made changes in candidates for three Assembly segments, nominating Sarat Kumar Pradhan, Krushna Sagaria, and Sanjay Kumar Mandal in place of Manoj Kumar Acharya, Jayant Kumar Bhoi, and Bipin Bihari Swain, respectively.

Other candidates announced for Assembly seats are Kshirod Chandra Patra (Badasahi), Bibhu Bushan Rout (Sukinda), Ashok Pratihari (Rajanagar), Loknath Moharathy (Mahakalapada), Gyan Ranjan Patnaik (Pipili), Pradeep Kumar Swain (Chilika), Manoj Kumar Pradhan (Khandapada), Nakul Nayak (Daspalla) and Shayam Sundargarh Sahu (Gopalpur).

With these announcements, Congress has now named candidates for 138 Assembly seats out of the total 147 in Odisha, while the ruling BJD and BJP have nominated aspirants for 135 and 131 seats, respectively.