Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Joda Nyay Yatra seems to have made an impact on the morale of the Congress workers in Odisha. The number of aspirants for Congress tickets, for both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, has gone up compared to 2019.

There has been a huge demand for the Congress tickets even though the Opposition BJP and BJD continue to write off Congress. So far more than 3,100 aspirants have applied for Congress tickets to contest the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Senior Congress leader Manoranjan Dash told The Telegraph: “The way the BJD sacrificed its Rajya Sabha seat to the BJP, it has its impact. People have realised that both the BJP and the BJD are hand-in-glove. The Congress has emerged as an alternative to the BJD and the BJP.”

He said: “Rahul’s Bharat Joda Nyay Yatra had its impact. There has been a lot of zeal among Congress workers for party tickets.”

What’s more significant is that the number of aspirants for the Congress ticket was more compared to 2019. In 2019, 435 people applied for 147 Assembly seats and 70 aspirants applied for 21 Lok Sabha seats.

However, the number of aspirants for 147 seats touched 2,500 and for Lok Sabha, the number of people applying for the tickets reached 670 this year.

The Congress has been out of power in the state since 2000 and has at present nine MLAs and one MP. The Congress was the main principal Opposition party till 2019 but was relegated to the third position in 2019.

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Sarat Kumar Pattnayak said: “To bring transparency in the ticket distribution system, we had asked the workers and people from various walks of life to apply for tickets through our newly introduced software Pragaman. They were asked to apply for tickets from February 4-11. The response was overwhelming.”

Pattnayak said: “Unlike the BJD and the BJP where the distribution of tickets was done in a closed room, here we are following a transparent and honest approach. The party has also received feedback from aspirants from block and district-level presidents. Based on the reports and feedback, the election committee of the party will take a call.

“Once the names of the aspirants for a ticket are finalised, they will be sent to the central screening committee for scrutiny. The AICC election committee will announce the names of the candidates.”