Congress Holds Seat-Sharing Talks With Odisha JMM

Congress leaders held a meeting with functionaries of the JMM’s Odisha unit on Sunday and discussed the sharing of seats for the Lok Sabha elections and assembly polls, which are held simultaneously in the state.

The closed-door meeting was attended by JMM’s state president Anjani Soren, its Odisha unit in charge Shivaji Moulik, Congress general secretary in charge of Odisha Ajoy Kumar, and state Congress president Sarat Pattanayak, among others.

The leaders of the two parties held initial discussions on seat sharing for Lok Sabha elections and assembly polls, JMM sources said.

At that meeting, Soren told Congress leaders that she would speak to her brother and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, besides the central committee of JMM, about the seat-sharing talks in Odisha, they said.

Another round of discussion will be held on January 10, where it is likely to be finalised which party will fight for how many seats in the state, the sources added.

Discussions were also held about Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Odisha as a part of the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’.

The JMM’s best performance so far in the state has been in the 2004 and 1995 assembly elections, in which it won four seats in each poll.

The party drew a blank in the 2019 assembly elections, but it has had a significant presence in Mayurbhanj, Sundergarh, and parts of Keonjhar district, since the years of the Jharkhand movement. These districts were part of its ‘Greater Jharkhand’ demand.

The Congress is part of the Hemant Soren government in neighboring Jharkhand.

Meanwhile, the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) formed a panel to hold discussions with its other partners in the INDIA bloc to finalize seat-sharing with them.

State president Sarat Pattanayak is leading the committee, while former president Prasad Harichandan and Koraput MP Saptagiri Ulaka are the other members of the panel.

The decision in this regard was taken at a meeting of senior leaders of 17 non-BJP, and non-BJD parties in the state. Ajoy Kumar was present at the meeting.

Source: PTI