Citing lack of party funds, Cong Puri MP candidate returns ticket

Bhubaneswar: Two days before the deadline for filing nominations, Congress candidate for Puri Lok Sabha seat, Sucharita Mohanty, on Saturday pulled out of the electoral race, alleging lack of funds from the cash-strapped party for her campaigning.

Sucharita, who had unsuccessfully contested from the Puri parliamentary seat in 2014, said she conveyed her decision to the Congress brass to return the party ticket.

While voting will be held in Puri on May 25, the last date for submission of nominations is Monday. Sucharita has not filed her nomination papers yet.

“I cannot contest as the party refused to sponsor my campaign. I am a salaried individual and cannot afford the election expenses. The party asked me to arrange funds on my own,” said Sucharita, whose father late Braja Mohan Mohanty had represented Puri in the assembly and Lok Sabha twice each in the 1970s and 1980s, besides serving as assembly speaker and a Union minister in the Indira Gandhi govt.

Sucharita said she is unaware whether the Congress provided financial assistance to other MLA and MP candidates in the state. She refused to divulge the amount she had received from the party for her election campaign in 2014.

Sucharita also alleged the All India Congress Committee (AICC) did not consider her suggestions to replace a few weak candidates named for assembly constituencies under the Puri Lok Sabha seat.

AICC refuted the charges and said the party has already started an exercise to name a replacement before she announced to return the ticket. Sucharita denied she would quit the Congress. Later in the evening, Congress announced Jay Narayan Patnaik as its new candidate for Puri Lok Sabha seat.

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