No political parties have declared their candidates for the mining-rich Champua Assembly constituency of Keonjhar district yet, for which election is going to be held on May 25. Champua was a traditional ST Congress seat, but it was declared a general seat in the year 2008 after which three elections were held.
Jitu Patnaik, former Congress leader, won the 2009 Assembly election as an independent candidate by defeating Sanatan Mahakud (Congress) by a margin of just 150 votes. While Jitu had got 27,700 votes as the winning independent candidate, Mahakud had secured 27, 550 votes. In 2014, Mahakud quit Congress and won the election as an independent candidate by defeating Kusha Apat (independent) who too had contested as a BJD rebel and BJD’s Tatwa Prakash Satpathy (Papu Pom Pom). Towards the end of his tenure as MLA, Mahakud was interested to join ruling BJD but at that time, the then powerful lobby led by Badrinarayan Patra - then a Minister and his supporters like Ashish Chakraborty (the then District BJD president) stood on his way. However, in the 2019 Assembly election, Mahakud himself did not contest and supported Meenakshi Mahanta who was elected on BJD ticket. But Meenakshi allegedly betrayed Mahakud due to whose support she had won. It is said that out of six Assembly seats of Keonjhar, BJD had won five (Telkoi, Anandapur, Ghasipura, Patna and Champua ) and BJP one (Keonjhar Sadar) in 2019. Mahakud played a crucial role in BJD winning the five seats.
This time, it is not yet clear whether Mahakud will be contesting the election on a BJD or BJP ticket or as an Independent. But so far as BJP is concerned, Murali Sharma, the last BJP candidate for Champua is a strong contender for party ticket. Sharma has been camping in Champua for the last six months and has exuded confidence that the BJP will win Champua this time.
In 2019, Sharma was in second position by getting 63,117 votes (37.60%) while winner BJD’s Mahanta had got 89,525 votes (53.30%). Sharma said that he did not get much time for campaigning in 2019 but considering the fact that BJP is ahead in booth level meetings with the added advantage of popularity of PM Modi at ground level, he was sure of winning the seat in 2024. Besides, the BJP workers are not in a mood to accept anybody outside their party fold, although gossip is still going on that Mahakud is in touch with top BJP leaders for the ticket.
On the other hand, although local BJD leaders and their supporters are interested in Mahakud as their candidate, there are two obstacles in this regard. One, Kusha Apat, who contested the 2014 election unsuccessfully though he had stood in 2nd position. He is said to have a strong organisation in Champua. The second obstacle is the mining lobby which does not want powerful and popular leaders to dictate terms to the miners.
