Odisha assembly polls: CPM announces candidates for 5 seats

BHUBANESWAR: Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday announced name of candidates for five assembly seats. These constituencies are Bonai , Ranpur , Pallahara, Nilgiri and Morada .

Party’s state secretary Ali Kishore Patnaik said they will contest elections from one Lok Sabha and five assembly constituencies this year.

The Central committee of the CPM has already announced name of Janardan Pati as candidate from Bhubaneswar parliament constituency.

Patnaik announced names for assembly seats. Laxman Munda, who is a sitting MLA from Bonai constituency in Sundargarh district, will again contest from this seat. Jogananda Das will fight the election from Nilgiri seat in Balasore district, while Nityananda Parida and Girendra Goswami will contest from Ranpur in Nayagarh and Morada in Mayurbhaj districts respectively.

The party has also fielded a woman candidate Meena Pradhan for Pallahara constituency in Angul district . “We have fielded candidates where we are confident to win the seats. We have supporters and party workers across the state. They will cast their votes against BJP and BJD,” Patnaik said.

The state secretary said the party has made alliance with Congress to field a CPM candidate for Bhubaneswar MP seat. “We hope the Congress will also support our candidates contesting from five assembly seats. Our only aim is to persuade the voters not to vote for saffron party BJP and ruling party BJD,” he added.

The party had won Bonai assembly seat in 2014. Other major parties are yet to declare names of their candidates.