Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party's senior leader Rahul Gandhi are likely to visit Odisha next week for campaigning in simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the state, a senior party leader said on Sunday.

Speaking to reporters here, AICC in-charge of Odisha, Ajoy Kumar said Gandhi and Kharge are expected to visit the state between May 26 and 28.

The details of their visit would be finalised in two days, he said.

“We have requested Priyanka Gandhi ji to come to Odisha for campaigning on May 25. However, she has a prescheduled public meeting in Uttar Pradesh on that day and then she will visit Himachal Pradesh. We have now requested her to visit Odisha on May 26,” Kumar said.

Rahul Gandhi had held an election rally in Cuttack on April 28 and Balangir on May 15. Kharge had, on May 16, held a meeting in Kandhamal district and a press conference in Bhubaneswar.

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Odisha for election campaigning, the Congress leader said, “Modi ji is coming here to spread lies. He had promised to provide 2 crore jobs each year. Forget about giving jobs, crores of people have lost their jobs and unemployment is at its peak in India." PM Modi is coming for campaigning but it will have "a negative impact on the election results for BJP candidates" in the state, Kumar claimed.

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