The Congress’ Puri Lok Sabha candidate Sucharita Mohanty has withdrawn her nomination, alleging that the party denied funding to her, The Indian Express reported on Saturday.

Odisha has 21 Lok Sabha constituencies and 147 Assembly seats. Voting for the Lok Sabha seats in Odisha will take place in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. The Assembly elections in the state will be held simultaneously.

“Our campaign in the Puri parliamentary constituency has been hit hard because the party has denied me funding,” Mohanty has said in a letter to Congress general secretary KC Venugopal. “AICC [All India Congress Committee] Odisha in-charge Dr Ajoy Kumar ji categorically asked me to fend for myself.”

Mohanty said that she had also tried to run a donation drive through her social media account to sustain her campaign. However, she was unable to raise enough funds, ANI reported. She described her two opponents from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Biju Janata Dal as “money bags”.

In Puri, the BJP has fielded its national spokesperson Sambit Patra, while the Biju Janata Dal has named former Mumbai Police commissioner Arup Patnaik as its candidate.

“It is understood that the party funds the candidate,” Mohanty told ANI on Saturday. “But this time the situation is different. The BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government has put all kinds of curbs and restrictions on our [Congress] accounts.”

She added that the Congress is struggling to support its candidates wholeheartedly. “They are under pressure because the BJP government does not want Congress to put up a good campaign or win,” she said.

The Congress is facing a tax demand of over Rs 3,500 crore from the Income Tax Department. The notices for tax demand came weeks before the Lok Sabha polls began in April. On March 21, the Congress had said that the Income Tax department had frozen all its bank accounts ahead of the polls.

Besides lack of funding, Mohanty said that the Congress has not given tickets in the seven Assembly segments that come under the Puri Lok Sabha seat to candidates who have more chances of winning the polls, reported ANI. She said that her suggestion of fielding stronger candidates from these seats was not considered by the Congress.

On April 29, the Congress nominee for the Indore Lok Sabha seat Akshay Kanti Bam withdrew his nomination and joined the BJP. After this, the Congress said that the party would not support any other candidate and urged voters to press the None Of The Above, or NOTA button to teach the Bharatiya Janata Party a lesson.

Polling will be held in the constituency in the fourth phase on May 13.

This came after after the BJP candidate from Gujarat’s Surat constituency, Mukesh Dala, was declared winner unopposed after the Congress’ Nilesh Kumbhani was disqualified by the polling officer and other candidates withdrew their nominations. This was two weeks before the seat was scheduled to head for voting.

Also read: Why is the Congress facing a Rs 3,567-crore demand from the Income Tax department?

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