Row over Congress candidate refusing ticket; Sanjay Nirupam calls Venugopal ‘dealer’.

Sucharita Mohanty left journalism 10 years ago to enter politics. She wrote to KC Venugopal that she did not have the fund for campaigning. In a major setback for the Congress, the party’s candidate from Odisha’s Puri Lok Sabha constituency returned her ticket alleging that the party denied her funding. Sucharita Mohanty said she wrote to party general secretary KC Venugopal but the party did not take any step. As this came to light, former Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam called KC Venugopal the ‘wheeler-dealer’ and said this is ‘today’s poor Congress’. “The wheeler-dealer who makes financial deals to give posts to Congress members and takes a commission from every minister in state governments for each work scolded the woman candidate (Sucharita Mohanty) so much that she withdrew her candidature,” former Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam who joined the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) said. Why did Sucharita Mohanty refuse the ticket?Sucharita Mohanty was a journalist before entering politics 10 years ago. She said she did not have enough funds for the campaigning. “I have returned the ticket because the party was not able to fund me. Another reason is that in some of the seats in seven Assembly segments, winnable candidates have not been given the ticket. Instead, some weak candidates got the ticket. I couldn’t contest like this,” Sucharita told news agency ANI. “Our campaign in the Puri Parliamentary constituency has been hit hard because the party has denied me funding. AICC Odisha in-charge Ajoy Kumar ji categorically asked me to fend for myself. I was a salaried professional journalist who entered electoral politics 10 years ago. I have given all I have into my campaign in Puri,” Mohanty wrote in her letter to KC Venugopal.