BJD feels safe fielding hokey icon as lS candidate
The BJD is going to fight elections this time with its own symbol ‘conch’ for the first time in the Sundargarh lok Sabha seat and two Assembly seats, Talsara and Bonai, in the district.
As there was coalition between the BJD and the BJP, the latter had fielded candidates in the 1998, 1999 and 2004 elections in these constituencies. After the two parted ways in 2009, the BJD gave the seat to CPI(M) under a seat-sharing agreement.
While the BJP candidates had won the lS seat consecutively for three terms during the coalition, CPI(M) candidate Salomi Minz ended up with the fourth position getting 71,582 votes only in 2009.
Though it doesn’t seem an easy going task for a debutant, the BJD has been very wise to field international hockey star Dilip Tirkey as its candidate for the seat. Rajya Sabha member Tirkey is all set to take on two political stalwarts, BJP’s Jual Oram and Congress’s Hemanand Biswal.
The party is confident that Dilip will have an easy win. The party workers argue that despite being a hockey icon, Dilip will cash in on the situation where voters have worst experience with the two, former MP Oram and incumbent MP Biswal.
They further argue that people’s craze for Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will also make him win.
The craze is very much there as the BJD formed the Zila Parishad and three councils of Sundargarh, Rajgangpur and Biramitrapur in the last three-tier Panchayat and UlB elections, they argued.
Similarly, the ruling party candidates will fight elections for the first time in Talsara and Bonai Assembly segments. The BJP had fielded candidates in 2000 and 2004 in these two seats.But in 2009, the BJD left Talsara to NCP and Bonai to CPI(M) under seat-sharing agreement. Both had lost to Congress and BJP candidates respectively.
Though this year’s BJD candidate Dayanidhi Kissan had already represented the constituency on BJP tickets but the conch symbol is new in the segment. He is confident of his victory as people support Naveen Patnaik which, he says, has been corroborated from the fact that the party got maximum number of Zilla Parishad members and formed three panchyat samitis out of four in the last panchayat polls.
This time, BJD candidate for Talsara Binay Toppo had lost the 2009 elections to his Congress rival very miserably while contesting as JMM candidate. He claims that he will win the seat as people want Naveen Patnaik as their Chief Minister.