Is it the end of the political journey of the State’s most successful political heavyweight and clever politician Prafulla Chandra GhadaiIJ

Ruling BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik has denied party ticket to Ghadai to seek re-election from the Sukinda Assembly seat and, instead, nominated his son Priti Ranjan Ghadai for this constituency. Priti Ranjan Ghadai had won from the Korei Assembly seat in the 2009 elections. For Korei, Patnaik has chosen actor-turned-politician Akash Das Nayak as the party candidate this time, a few days after the latter was roped into the BJD.

Prafulla Ghadai has been an MlA several times ever since 1967 when he was for the first time elected from the then Jajpur West constituency on the ticket of the erstwhile Jana Congress. He was re-elected from this seat in 1971 as a Congress candidate. He, however, failed to get into the Assembly from 1973 to 1990 due to some reason or the other.

Since 1990, Ghadai was elected from the Sukinda seat without any break till 2009.

Born on December 5, 1940, Ghadai has seen several ups and downs in politics. He has been a Minister of different departments at different times, the latest being Finance Minister till Patnaik sacked him from the Cabinet in 2012.

As political circles believe, Ghadai’s suspected close association with Rajya Sabha member and now Odisha Jan Morcha president Pyarimohan Mohapatra seems to have put a break on Ghadai’s further career advancement.

In fact, Ghadai was dropped from the Cabinet shortly after Mohapatra’s alleged May 29, 2012 coup bid against Patnaik’s leadership. Patnaik seems to still believe that Ghadai aspired to become Chief Minister with Mohapatra’s help.