Cong-Left-JMM tie-up: 3 parties get 1 LS seat each, 9 Assly seats

By Subrat Das*

Bhubaneswar: In a seat sharing with two left parties-CPI and CPM – and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Congress has left one Lok Sabha seat each to these parties and nine Assembly seats.

Talking to Odisha Sun Times, CPI state secretary Dibakar Nayak said the party candidate Ramakrishna Panda is contesting from Aska Lok Sabha constituency as the combined candidate of the four parties. Besides, the party has got Chhatrapur, Boudh and Brajarajnagar assembly seats as part of seat adjustment. The party has fielded Pradip Sethy from Chhatrapur, Abakash Sahu from Boudh and Ramesh Tripathy from Brajarajnagar.

Similarly, veteran CPM leader Janardan Pati is the combined candidate in prestigious Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency. The three other allies have also spared Bonai Assembly seat to the sitting MLA Laxman Munda. Besides, party’s candidate Jogananda Das, Nityananda Padhi, Jinendra Kumar Goswami and Mina Pradhan are also fighting friendly fight in Nilagiri, Ranpur, Morada and Pallahara. Party state secretary Ali Kishore Patnaik said, “The objective of the seat adjustment is to ensure installation of a secular government. We want to defeat both BJD and BJP. We consider BJD as undeclared ally of BJP”.

JMM state president Mahesh Hembram said the party has got Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha seat as part of seat adjustment. Party candidate Anjani Soren Marandi has been fielded from this tribal dominated constituency. Besides, the party has decided to contest from Rairangpur, Saraskana, Bangiriposhi and Morada assembly constituencies in Mayurbhanj district. However, the candidate list for these four assembly seats have not been formally announced. “It’s expected within a day or two”, he said.

However, Sebian Ind has been fielded by the party from Biramitrapur assembly seat in another tribal district Sundargarh.

The writer is a journalist currently working with Sambad Group as Consultant Editor of Group Digital Edition.