Jharsuguda: Congress candidate Tarun Pandey Saturday filed his nomination papers for the May 10 Jharsuguda assembly by-election in Odisha.
Accompanied by Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Sarat Pattnayak and other senior party leaders, Pandey took out a procession and filed papers at the office of Jharsuguda deputy collector.
The by-poll to the assembly seat was necessitated after the murder of state minister and MLA Naba Kishore Das.
Das breathed his last January 29 evening hours after he was shot by a policeman at Gandhi Chhak in the Brajrajnagar area of Jharsuguda district, where he had gone to attend an event.
The Congress nominee, the son of former three-time MLA Biren Pandey, was the first among candidates of major parties to file his nomination papers.
BJP candidate Tankadhar Tripathy and BJD nominee Dipali Das, the daughter of the slain minister, are likely to file their papers for the by-poll April 17 and 18 respectively.
Pandey said Jharsuguda has “not achieved any substantial development though the BJD has been ruling the state for 23 years”.
He blamed the Naveen Patnaik government for the “worsening law and order situation” in Jharsuguda.
All the candidates of the three major parties are debutants in the electoral fray.
The nomination process for the by-poll, which began April 13, is slated to end April 20.
During the day, BJD president and CM Naveen Patnaik formally handed over the documents regarding Dipali Das’ candidature for the by-poll, while the BJP held a press conference at Jharsuguda.
Senior BJP leaders, including the party’s state president Manmohan Samal, former state unit chief Samir Mohanty, Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari and several MLAs will accompany Tripathy during the filing of papers in Jharsuguda, state BJP general secretary Golak Mohapatra said.
PTI
