BHUBANESWAR: Seat sharing talks between Congress and Left parties in Odisha are likely to hit a roadblock as the grand old party has decided to field its candidate from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat in the ensuing elections. The CPM had contested the seat in 2019.
Veteran Congress leader Suresh Kumar Routray is being projected as the party’s candidate from the seat. Though Routray’s name is yet to be finalised, sources in the party said there is unanimity among senior leaders on his candidature. Several Congress leaders told The New Indian Express, Routray is a known face and will be more effective in attracting anti-BJD and anti-BJP votes.
Besides, the experiment in 2019 elections when Congress had not fielded any candidate from the seat to support CPM’s Janardan Pati had turned disastrous for the party. Pati polled only around 23,000 votes. Congress sources maintained the impact in the seven Assembly constituencies barring Jatni where Routray won defeating the BJD candidate had a negative effect on Congress.
Congress candidates had polled around 1.5 lakh votes in the constituency in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls. A senior leader said it has become quite tough to revive the party in the six Assembly constituencies as the 2019 elections had an adverse impact on the Congress organisation.
The issue was discussed at the meeting of Pradesh Election Committee (PEC) held last week. The PEC will recommend the name of Routray from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat. “If the Congress wants to improve its performance in the Assembly elections and fixes a target of 90 Assembly seats, then the Lok Sabha candidates will have to be strong,” a former Congress minister said.
If the Bhubaneswar seat is left for CPM, the visibility of Congress in the vital constituency will be zero. This will strongly affect the performance of the party in the Assembly seats also. The CPM, however, does not want to part with Bhubaneswar seat.
“We have informed Congress that the CPM will field its candidate from Bhubaneswar seat. The party will not sacrifice the seat for Congress,” a senior CPM leader said.