Congress releases list of 9 candidates for Odisha Assembly elections

The Congress party on Wednesday released its list of nine candidates for the Odisha Assembly elections and one for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The party announced Niranjan Patnaik's candidature from Ghoshipura constituency, while Jagdish Mohanty has been named as its candidate from Cuttack Choudwar.

Other names that featured in the list are - Ashwani Pujari from Sambalpur, Abhishek Mahananda from Cuttack Sadar Sukanta Tiadi Bhoi from Jayadev, Rajib Patnaik from Bhubaneshwar Central, Itish Pradhan from Bhubaneshwar North, Pradeep Sahoo from Begunia and Pradeep Swain from Chilika.

Sarat Patnaik has been named as its Lok Sabha candidate from Sambalpur parliamentary constituency. Polling for the Lok Sabha elections in Odisha will be held in four phases starting from April 11. In the first phase, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Berhampur, Koraput constituencies will go to polls, while Bargarh, Sundargarh, Bolangir, Kandhamal, Aska will go to polls in the second phase on April 18.

In the third phase, Sambalpur, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, Puri, Bhubaneswar will go to polls, while polling in the rest of six seats - Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur - will be held in the fourth phase on April 29. The results of the elections will be announced on May 23 along with all other states of the country.

Elections for the 117-member Odisha state legislative Assembly will be held concurrently with the Lok Sabha elections, 2019 in the first four out of the seven phases.