Congress candidate for the Puri Lok Sabha seat Sucharita Mohanty has returned party ticket due to lack of funding from the party.

Sucharita, daughter of former Congress MP Brajamohan Mohanty, has written a mail to AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal in this regard.

Mohanty said her campaign in the constituency has been hit hard because the party has denied funding. AICC Odisha in-charge Ajoy Kumar categorically told her to fight polls from her own resources.  

Sucharita has been fielded against BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra and former Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik (BJD).  

“I was a salaried professional journalist who entered electoral politics 10 years ago. I have given all I have into my campaign in Puri. I tried a public donation drive to support my campaign for progressive politics without much success so far. I also tried to cut down the projected campaign spending to the minimum,” she mentioned.

As she wasn’t able to raise funds on her own, she approached all senior leaders including the party’s central leadership for party funds.

“It is clear that only fund crunch is holding us back from a winning campaign in Puri. I regret that without party funding, it won’t be possible to carry out the campaign. I, therefore, return the ticket for the constituency herewith,” she said in her memo to the AICC.

“BJP and BJD are sitting on mountains of money. Vulgar displays of wealth are everywhere,” she said.

The BJP government has crippled the Congress. There are a lot of curbs on expenditure and many of the Congress bank accounts have been frozen, she added.

However, Mohanty said she would remain a loyal Congress worker and her leader is Rahul Gandhi.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, she had lost to Pinaki Misra of the BJD. Misra polled 5,23,161 votes while she trailed with 2,89,800 votes.