BHUBANESWAR: Seven sitting MLAs, Subhashree Panda, wife of Maoist Sabyasachi Panda and Samarendra Mishra, son of the leader of the Opposition Narasingh Mishra found place in the second list of Congress candidates for two Lok Sabha and 54 Assembly seats announced by the party late on Friday night.
However, the second list has sparked off largescale resentment among the party rank and file in different parts of the State which has brought to the fore internal fissures in the grand old party.
Differences in the party over the distribution of tickets in undivided Koraput district spilled out in the open on Saturday with Congress chief whip in the Assembly Tara Prasad Bahinipati criticising the selection of Saptagiri Ulaka as the party’s candidate for the Koraput Lok Sabha seat.
The Bahinipati faction is opposed to the group led by working president Pradeep Majhi who played a major role in selection of candidates from the region.
The Bahinipati faction wanted Prafulla Bhadra as Congress candidate for the Koraput Lok Sabha seat. Alleging that there has been a conspiracy in selection of candidates for seats in the undivided Koraput district, Bahinipati said, “Now the result will speak.” Besides the Koraput Lok Sabha seat, Bahinipati is also not happy over selection of candidates for some of the Assembly segments in the region including Koraput.
Meanwhile, selection of Manojmanjari Debi for the Nilagiri Assembly seat by overlooking the claim of former MLA Chittaranjan Sarangi has also sparked off strong resentment.
The Congress list includes two former presidents of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Prasad Harichandan and Jaydev Jena who will contest from Satyabadi and Anandpur constituencies respectively. Besides, OPCC working president and a sitting MLA Chiranjib Biswal has been announced as party’s candidate from the Jagatsinghpur seat.
Six other sitting MLAs, K Surya Rao, Prafulla Majhi, Anshuman Mohanty, Kailash Kulesika, Chandrasekhar Majhi and Devendra Sharma have been renominated from Parlakhemundi, Talsara, Rajnagar, Laxmipur, Kotpad and Aul seats respectively.
The list also has names of former ministers Ganeswar Behera (Kendrapara), Suresh Kumar Routray (Jatni) and Surendra Singh Bhoi (Titlagarh), former MLAs Santosh Singh Saluja (Kantabanji) and Uma Ballav Rath (Athgarh).
Congress will also have to rethink its strategy for Rourkela as Muktikant Biswal, the Rourkela youth who hogged the limelight for his Delhi Chalo mission, has refused to contest the Assembly elections as a party candidate. Congress had named Muktikant as its candidate from the Rourkela Assembly seat.
New faces
Maoist Sabyasachi Panda’s wife Subhashree Panda, leader of the Opposition Narasingh Mishra’s son Samarendra Mishra have been selected
Tara Prasad Bahinipati has criticised the selection of Saptagiri Ulaka as the party’s candidate for the Koraput Lok Sabha seat