Bhubaneswar: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s decision to contest the upcoming assembly election from Kantabanji in Bolangir district, along with his traditional Hinjili seat in Ganjam, is a clear message that his party, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), is keen to retrieve the ground it conceded to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in western Odisha in 2019.
The 2019 elections saw the regional party losing all the five Lok Sabha seats in western Odisha, namely Bargarh, Sundargarh, Balangir, Sambalpur and Kalahandi, to the BJP. Though Patnaik’s party did reasonably well in the assembly segments falling under these Lok Sabha constituencies, emerging victorious in 22 out of 35 assembly seats in the region, the Lok Sabha loss was a big blow.
In 2019, too, Patnaik had contested the assembly election from two seats – Hinjili in his native Ganjam and Bijepur in Bargarh district of western Odisha. The strategy, however, yielded results for his party only in the assembly segments, and failed to stop the saffron party from sweeping all the Lok Sabha seats in the region. The BJP’s Odisha Lok Sabha tally in 2019 went up to eight from just one five years before that.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
This time round, the BJD seems determined to checkmate the BJP both in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, with a special focus on western Odisha. This became obvious after the regional party decided to field its general secretary (organisation) Pranab Prakash Das aka Bobby against Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan in Sambalpur. Bobby, for whom the post of organisational general secretary was specially created in the BJD, is the third most important man in the regional party after chief minister Patnaik and his right-hand man, bureaucrat-turned-politician V. Karthikeyan Pandian.
With tremendous resources at his command and enjoying the full backing of the chief minister, Bobby, who was made BJD’s observer for Sambalpur in March last year, is capable of giving the Union minister a run for his money in Sambalpur, the political nerve centre of western Odisha.
The party has also chosen its candidates on the other four Lok Sabha seats in the region carefully. In Sundergarh, the stronghold of former Union minister and BJP veteran Jual Oram, the BJD has once again fielded Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey, in an apparent bid to cash in on his popularity as the ambassador of the game. The party also seems to be eyeing the Christian community votes that Tirkey, a Catholic Christian, may tap into.
On the Bargarh seat, it has put up debutant Parineeta Mishra who was rewarded with the party ticket after her husband Sushant Mishra, a BJP veteran from the region, defected to the regional party. The BJD here hopes to gain not only from Sushant’s political experience but also his strong network both in the BJP and Congress. He worked for a long time as a close confidante of former minister and Congress stalwart Prakash Debata. Sushant, who is practically fighting a proxy battle on behalf of his wife, is capable of making inroads into the vote banks of both the BJP and Congress in Bargarh district. This makes newbie Parineeta a formidable candidate.
Similarly, in Kalahandi, the regional party is pinning its hopes on the organisational prowess of Lambodar Nial, a low-profile leader who has risen through the ranks. The 54-year-old veteran has been actively engaged in grassroots organisational activities, especially within his own Gouda community which constitutes a sizeable population in some important segments of the Lok Sabha constituency. The candidature of Nial, who served as the sarpanch of Karangamal gram panchayat in 1992 and as samiti member of Boden block in 1997 before rising to become the chairman of Boden block in 2002 and a member of the Nuapada zilla parishad in 2012, stands in sharp contrast to BJP’s Malvika Keshari Deo, a member of the Kalahandi royal family. While Malvika’s appeal primarily rests on her royal lineage Nial is a grassroots leader who can connect with people with ease.
Equations in Bolangir, the fifth western Odisha Lok Sabha seat, are likely to change in favour of the BJD following the announcement of chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s candidature from Kantabanji assembly seat which is part of the Lok Sabha constituency. Not far from the Chhattisgarh border, Kantabanji is strategically placed, offering Patnaik an opportunity to influence voters not just in Bolangir but also Kalahandi. Besides, his candidature is being seen as a message that he cares for the people of western Odisha – but his party needs their support to execute its developmental plans for the region.
Though the BJP tried to play it down, there is no denying the enthusiasm among BJD cadres across the western belt following the announcement of Patnaik’s candidature from Kantabanji. “We are extremely happy that the chief minister has chosen to contest from Kantabanji. It has galvanised cadres,” said Surendra Singh Bhoi, the BJD Lok Sabha candidate from Bolangir.
For Bhoi, who is locking horns with Bolangir’s sitting BJP MP Sangeeta Kumaro Singhdeo, a member of the local royal family, Patnaik’s candidature from Kantabanji is nothing short of a godsend. “Considering that Bhoi has been fighting the turncoat tag after quitting the Congress to join the BJD, the chief minister’s presence in the fray from one of the assembly segments under Bolangir Lok Sabha constituency could turn things in his favour. The chief minister’s candidature will also have an overall impact on the contest in the entire western Odisha belt,” said political analyst Shashi Kant Mishra.
However, former state BJP president Samir Mohanty described the move as a sign of weakness on the part of chief minister and his party. “It shows their lack of confidence and will actually send across a negative message. While it is unlikely to have any negative impact on BJP’s prospects in western Odisha, where we continue to be as strong as ever, it could actually end up harming the ruling party,” argued Mohanty.
Ashutosh Mishra is an Odisha-based journalist.
