The Congress party has been working hard to seed a political network to make the party a force against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Odisha. Although it has developed clarity on the dos and don'ts in the state to gather an audience, it is now focusing on the upcoming bypoll in Naupada constituency. The assembly seat will go for polls on November 11, making it a first after the 2024 assembly elections to decide who is powerful in electoral politics as of today.

Congress's main challenger in the bypolls is the BJP, which has 'imported' a candidate from Biju Janata Dal leader Rajendra Dholakia's lineage, whose death necessitated the bypolls. It was widely believed that it would be the BJD that would field Dholakia's son, Jay Dholakia, and retain the family seat, banking on the family'

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