BJD Pins Hopes on Paika Community, Slum Dwellers to Wrest Bhubaneswar Seat from BJP

Bhubaneswar: In 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won this prestigious Lok Sabha seat for the first time, setting a new record. Bureaucrat-turned-politician Aparajita Sarangi breached this supposedly impregnable fortress of Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) defeating party candidate, former Mumbai police commissioner Arup Patnaik, who like her was a fresher in politics. She trounced him by a margin of over 23,000 votes.

As Aparajita battles to retain the seat, the BJD is out to take revenge and the man tasked with recapturing the party’s erstwhile stronghold is a young pilot who gave up his job to take the political plunge. What made Naveen Patnaik’s regional party throw in its lot with pilot-turned-politician Manmath Routray in one of the most prestigious constituencies of the state is the fact that he happens to be the son of Congress veteran and six-time MLA Suresh Routray who has a strong following among members of the Paika community to which he belongs and who have a sizeable population in Khurda, Begunia and Jatni assembly segments of the Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat.

The senior Routray, who openly campaigned for his son after being expelled by the Congress for canvassing support for a rival party candidate, has sought to invoke the Paika pride, reminding the community members of their martial tradition and the sacrifices they made in the war against the British rule, while seeking votes for his son. Political analysts like Shashi Kant Mishra believe this is a novel and excellent way of connecting with the Paikas who are emotional by nature.

“This way he has not only struck a chord with his community members who have a sizeable population in some assembly segments of the constituency, but he can also manage to isolate Aparajita who cannot make such an emotional connect with any segment of the electorate,” said Mishra.

Factors at play

It is significant to mention that Paikas, members of a military class who rendered their services to Odia kings in the past and also fought the British Raj have been demanding recognition for their heroes from the government. While Paika heroes like Buxi Jagabandhu, who led the Paika revolt of 1817 against the British, are now beginning to be recognised at the national level, many other heroes of the clan are yet to receive the honour due to them.

In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the kin of Paika rebellion freedom fighters during his visit to Bhubaneswar and following that, there has been a demand for the rebellion to be recognised as the first Indian War of Independence. However, the demand is yet to be accepted and the honour still belongs to the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. This continues to rile the Paikas who are now likely to throw their weight behind BJD which has been campaigning for the Paika rebellion to be accorded the status of the first war of independence.

The BJD candidate, whose father is a known figure in the Jatni-Khurda belt and has represented Jatni in the state assembly several times, also enjoys the advantage of the loyalty of slum voters who have voted for the party faithfully in almost every election to show their gratitude for the numerous welfare schemes that the BJD government has launched for them. Slum dwellers account for over 50,000 votes in the three assembly segments of Bhubaneswar Central, Bhubaneswar North, and Ekamra-Bhubaneswar located within the capital city limits. They are also concentrated in pockets of Jaydev, Jatni, Khurda and Begunia segments.

The other advantage for the BJD having fielded Manmath Routray is that he would be able to prevent the migration of Congress votes to the BJP, which was a major factor behind the victory of Aparajita in 2019 when the Congress did not put up a candidate on the seat and supported the CPI(M) candidate Janardan Pati instead. Pati, however, got a meagre 23,026 votes as the bulk of Congress votes went to Aparajita. This also happened in some other Lok Sabha constituencies of the state, resulting in BJP’s overall Lok Sabha tally rising to eight from just one in 2014.

This time around, however, Aparajita is unlikely to benefit from Congress votes because of two reasons. The first reason is the fact that Congress has put up a candidate of its own youth leader Yasir Nawaz. More importantly, despite the presence of Nawaz who is making his electoral debut, there is a strong possibility of a large number of Congress supporters voting for Manmath Routray owing to the personal contacts of his father and six-time MLA Suresh Routray.

Since most Congress sympathisers realise that Yasir has been asked to enter the fray only to mark the party’s presence on the seat, they would more likely than not oblige the senior Routray by voting for his son whose winning prospects look good instead of wasting their ballots in a losing cause. Many, in fact, are sympathetic towards Suresh Routray, an old war horse of the Congress who was expelled by the party allegedly for seeking votes for his son, a charge he had denied vehemently when the party served him with a show cause notice. It was only following his expulsion from the party that he started canvassing for his son openly.

Aparajita, on the other hand, seems to be relying chiefly on the perceived popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who held a road show in Bhubaneswar nearly two weeks ago. She has also sought to highlight her own work in the constituency which, however, has always been the focus of Naveen Patnaik’s government as Bhubaneswar happens to be the state capital. The BJD, thus, can claim more credit for the development of the constituency.

Another plus point for the BJD is that notwithstanding the fact that the Lok Sabha seat was won by BJP in 2019, the saffron party does not have a single MLA representing any of its seven assembly segments. While six assembly segments are represented by BJD, Congress’s Suresh Routray won the Jatni assembly seat in the last election. He is now out of the Congress and openly campaigning for his son and BJD’s Lok Sabha candidate Manmath Routray.

Aparajita may, however, draw solace from the fact that Khurda MLA Jitu Mitra who had won the 2019 election on a BJD ticket has switched loyalty after being denied a ticket by the party this time. He was recently seen campaigning for her but that alone may not be enough to tilt the balance in favour of Aparajita who will also need a huge slice of luck to retain the seat.