Bhubaneswar: The Congress party today changed its candidates for five assembly constituencies in Odisha while naming Akshaya Acharya for Nilgiri assembly segment.
The party has nominated former Minister and four-time MLA Debashish Nayak for the Bari assembly constituency replacing Arati Deo. Shri Nayak had joined the Congress on Saturday after BJP denied him a ticket.
Notably, the former Minister had joined the BJP in February this year as BJD was not in a mood to nominate him.
Shri Nayak was elected to the state assembly from Bari constituency in 2000, 2004, 2009 and 2014 on a BJD ticket.
Similarly, Congress spokesperson Sudarshan Das has been nominated for the Jaleswar MLA seat replacing Debi Prasanna Chand. For Athamallik assembly segment, the party has fielded Himanshu Chaulia in place of Bijayananda Chaulia while Sujit Mahapatra has been replaced by Uma Ballav Rath for Puri MLA seat.
Moreover, Sudarshan Sahoo is the new nominee of Congress for Athagarh Vidhan Sabha seat. The party had earlier nominated Maheboob Ahemad Khan for the seat.
On Saturday, the party changed its Puri LS candidate Sucharita Mohanty after she returned the ticket due to lack of funding from the party. The Congress has nominated Jay Narayan Patnaik for the Puri LS segment.
With this list, the Congress party has announced candidates for 145 out of 147 Assembly segments in Odisha while the party has left one seat for JMM and another for CPI (M).The Lok Sabha and assembly elections will be held simultaneously in the state in four phases from May 13 to June 1.