After Congress leader Suresh Routray’s younger son Manmath Routray was picked up by the BJD as its candidate for the Lok Sabha elections, his elder son Siddharth Routray came up with a big announcement on Saturday stirring up a political debate in Jatni.
In an ongoing power tussle in the senior Congress leader’s family, Siddharth announced to fight the Assembly elections from Jatni as an Independent candidate.
“I will contest the polls as an Independent candidate from Jatni Assembly constituency to rectify my father’s mistake as the elder son. I will not tolerate injustice to the people of my constituency. We had defeated the BJD last time. My father and brother did injustice by tilting towards the BJD,” Siddharth told the media, ruling out his possibility to fight the polls from Nimapada.
“I will turn down the ticket even if the Congress offers me to fight the polls,” he added.
Notably, the BJD has nominated Manmath Routray as its candidate for the Bhubaneswar Parliamentary constituency.
Soon after his son joined the BJD and was named as the Lok Sabha candidate, the six-time Congress MLA Suresh Routray resigned from all committees of his party on Wednesday and announced that he would campaign for his younger son Manmath during the elections.
