Odisha: Cong fields ex-Union minister Srikant Jena from Balasore

BHUBANESWAR: Congress party on Saturday announced the names of nine more candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Among the notable nominees are Srikant Jena, a former Union minister, who will contest from the Balasore Lok Sabha constituency, and Yasir Nawaz, a student leader, who has been fielded from Bhubaneswar.

With this Congress has so far named 17 Lok Sabha candidates while BJP and BJD have announced nominees for all 21 Lok Sabha seats.

Jena, a three-time former Lok Sabha member, was last elected from Balasore in 2009 and was a minister of state in the Manmohan Singh-led UPA II government. With Jena at the helm, the grand old party hopes to give a tough fight to BJP’s Pratap Chandra Sarangi and BJD’s Lekhasri Samantsinghar in the LS segment located in northern Odisha.

While Jena brings his extensive political experience to the table, Nawaz's candidature is seen as an attempt to connect with the youth and tap into their aspirations. Nawaz, currently president of National Student Union of India, student wing of Congress, had led many successful agitations against the government in recent months.

Nawaz will debut in the high-profile Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat where BJP has fielded bureaucrat turned politician Aparajita Sarangi and BJD pilot turned politician Manmath Routray, also a debutant. Congress had not given any candidate in Bhubaneswar in 2019, leaving the seat to CPI (M) then.

Other candidates include former MPs Anant Sethi (Bhadrak), Anchal Das (Jajpur), former Mahila Congress president Sashmita Behera (Dhenkanal), former Odisha minister Rabindra Kumar Sethy (Jagatsinghpur), Sucharita Mohanty (Puri), Mohan Hembram (Keonjhar) and Sidharth Swarup Das (Kendrapada).

The party’s decision to nominate these individuals highlights its strategy to field a mix of experienced politicians and young leaders in the forthcoming polls. As the election campaign gains momentum, it remains to be seen how these candidates will fare in their respective constituencies.