BHUBANESWAR: The Congress is likely to announce its candidate for the coming byelection to the Pipili assembly constituency by March 30, after the Holi and Dol Yatra festivities are over. The byelection is scheduled to be held on April 17, while the counting of votes will take place on May 2.
Congress state president Niranjan Patnaik said the names of three aspiring nominees — Nishikant Mishra, Purna Swain and Ajit Mangaraj — have been sent to the All India Congress Committee. Mangaraj had unsuccessfully contested on a Congress ticket from the seat in the 2019 election. “We hope the party high command announces the name of the candidate before March 30. A list of 30 star campaigners is also ready,” he added.
The state chief electoral officer issued the official notification for the Pipili byelection on Tuesday. BJD and BJP have not finalised their candidates so far.
Though the Congress had performed abysmally in the 2019 assembly election in Pipili, Niranjan seems confident of a good show this time. “Our party’s vote share has gone down across the country. We will try our best to win the seat,” Niranjan said.
Pipili has been a politically sensitive area for years following tough fights between BJD’s Pradeep Maharathy and Congress’s Yudhistir Samantaray. Maharathy, whose death last year has made the bypolls necessary, had won seven times from Pipili since 1985. Though Samantaray had won only once in 1995, he had been the firebrand face of Congress in Pipili and continued to be the arch-rival of Maharathy.
Though Samantaray was offered a ticket in the run-up to the 2019 elections, he had left the party red-faced and refused to contest owing to his differences with Niranjan. Samantaray had accused Niranjan of having collected kickbacks from other aspiring candidates in Pipili.
Following Samantaray’s refusal to contest the 2019 polls, the Congress had fielded Mangaraj at the last moment. However, he had faced a humiliating defeat. Mangaraj had managed to secure only 9,830 votes of the 1,74,735 valid votes polled. Maharathy had won with 88,518 votes, while BJP’s Ashrit Pattanayak had stood second with 72,731 votes.
The Congress, which has long been faced with infighting in the state, saw crushing defeats in the byelections to the Balasore Sadar and Tirtol assembly constituencies on November 3 last year. The party also fell flat on its face in the Bijepur bypoll on October 21, 2019.