Women Voters, Welfare Schemes and Star Campaigners: The Prime Factors in Sambalpur Lok Sabha Contest

Sambalpur: The mood in Sambalpur city area is upbeat. Flags flutter along the main roads and streets. The candidates smile at the onlookers with folded hands from the posters, banners and hoardings at important places.

The most visible faces in the banners, posters and hoardings are of two high profile candidates — Dharmendra Pradhan and Pranab Prakash Das. Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP's) candidate for the Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency; Pranab Prakash Das, the organisational secretary and technically number two in the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) hierarchy, is the regional party’s nominee here. The third heavyweight in the fray is former minister and Lok Sabha MP Nagendra Pradhan, who has recently defected to the Congress from the BJD.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency comprises seven assembly segments — Sambalpur, Rengali, Rairakhol, Kuchinda, Deogarh, Athamallik and Chendipada. In the simultaneous general and assembly elections in Odisha in 2019, BJP’s Nitesh Ganga Deb had won the Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat. Out of the seven assembly seats, the BJD won Rairakhol, Kuchinda, Athmallik and Chhendipada while the BJP had emerged victorious in Sambalpur, Rengali and Deogarh.

Dharmendra Pradhan is more visible than Das and Nagendra Pradhan in the Sambalpur assembly constituency that comprises only the urban pockets of Sambalpur city, Burla and Hirakud, which together form the Sambalpur municipal corporation.

But a different picture unfolds if one steps out of the city and travels to rural areas which fall under this parliamentary constituency. Most of the people speak of ‘Sankha’ (conch, the BJD’s symbol), sometimes clearly and sometimes in a voice barely audible.

“We do not get into politics but how can we forget that the Naveen government has given us everything,” says Gomati, a middle aged woman. By ‘everything’ she means the state government’s popular welfare programmes like healthcare cover Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana and Mamata scheme for pregnant and lactating mothers.

One can see a clear urban-rural divide across the assembly segments. However, other complexities and dynamics make it difficult to say if the BJP will retain the Lok Sabha seat, even though the candidate this time is an influential union minister.

In 2000, after the BJD-BJP combine came to power in the state, most of the BJP’s assembly seats came from western Odisha. After both the parties parted ways nine years later, the BJD again started building up its base in western Odisha while the BJP's grip in its traditional pockets loosened.

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Since the Modi government came to power at the Centre in 2014, it started focusing on Odisha as part of its ‘look East’ policy. Five year later, backed by the strong national narrative of Pulwama-Balakote, the BJP won all the five Lok Sabha seats of western Odisha – Sambalpur, Bargarh, Balangir, Kalandi and Sundargarh – besides three other seats of Bhubaneswar, Balasore and Mayurbhanj thereby increasing its tally of just one seat in 2014 to eight in the state. The BJD, however, managed to win most of the assembly seats in western Odisha.

This time, in 2024, a national narrative is conspicuous by its absence. Moreover, the Modi magic has lost some of its sheen. So, the BJP candidate has to slug it out on his own to register a win.

Dharmendra Pradhan has been an early bird to the constituency. Being a union minister, he has been making forays to areas under Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency since the last one year taking advantage of central government functions. Besides, he is more well known because he is the last MP of the Deogarh Lok Sabha constituency that ceased to exist after delimitation in 2008; areas of Deogarh, Kuchinda and parts of Rengali assemblies that used to be in the extinct constituency are now parts of Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat.

The BJP candidate’s advantage also lies with the fact that the narratives around him are set in the Sambalpur city area, which then spread across the constituency.

But the union minister has his obstacles too. He has returned to Odisha’s electoral politics after 15 years and has to depend on the MLAs’ cadre base. The three sitting BJP MLAs – Sambalpur’s Jayanarayan Mishra, Rengali’s Nauri Nayak and Deogarh’s Subash Panigrahi – are facing anti-incumbency while the party organisation in all the three segments is faction ridden. “In Deogarh, most of the BJP men are opposing the sitting MLA. The internal squabbles may spoil Dharmendra’s party,” says a BJP worker.

Though Dharmendra Pradhan has a better visibility in urban areas of Sambalpur and Deogarh, questions are being raised even from those areas about his performance as a central minister. People often ask what exactly did he do to curb the rising prices of petrol, diesel and LPG when he was the union petroleum minister. Many say that as the union education minister, he has failed to set up a single Kendriya Vidyalaya in any area under the Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency. He is also being criticised for his alleged opposition to the establishment of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Sambalpur and for the tardy process of construction of the national highway-55 that connects Sambalpur with Bhubaneswar.

The BJD’s Pranab Prakash Das, basically an organisation man, has no such baggage. Whatever criticism that the BJD attracts is mainly directed against chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s aide V.K. Pandian.

What comes to the advantage of Das is that he has a better hold on the party’s organisation than his opponents. He depicts a picture of unity while canvassing with his MLA candidates. His explanation of the benefits of the BJD’s welfare schemes like the promised free electricity of 100 units and healthcare coverage for all seems to find resonance with the voters.

The battle for Sambalpur has become more intense with the entry of Nagendra Pradhan, who represented the Lok Sabha seat in 2014 on behalf of the BJD. Undoubtedly, the Congress’s vote base has been shrinking in the successive elections but the old warhorse’s personal hold in Chhendipada, Athamallik and Rairakhol, largely populated by the Chasa caste may help the party increase its votes at the cost of both the BJD and BJP. Both Dharmendra Pradhan and Nagendra Pradhan belong to the Chasa caste.

Dharmendra Pradhan banks on his individuality and carpet bombing of Odisha by central ministers and other BJP “star pracharaks (campaigners)”. On the other hand, Das is backed by the robust BJD organisation, the party-led state government’s welfare measures and, most importantly, the silent women vote base in the form of self-help groups.

It may not exactly be a triangular fight in the Sambalpur Lok Sabha constituency, which goes to polls on May 25, considering the Congress’s lack of organisational push. But Nagendra Pradhan’s presence and vote share will finally determine who emerges as the winner between Dharmendra Pradhan and Pranab Prakash Das in this electoral contest.

Priya Ranjan Sahu is a senior journalist based in Bhubaneswar.

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