Rita Tarei of the BJD is facing a keen contest with her Congress rival Ashok Das in the reserved Jajpur lokSabha constituency.
Two-time sitting MP Mohan Jena was denied the BJD ticket as he refused to dance to the tune of new influential BJD leader and Rajya Sabha member Kalpataru Das. Jena has recently distributed a leaflet alleging the role of Das behind denial of party ticket to him.
“Das had the BJD MP ticket given to Rita Tarei who was working as a maid servant in his house. Rita is a simple matriculate. Das is trying to control the politics of Jajpur by promoting his protégés. At his instance, senior leader Prafulla Ghadei too did not get a ticket. What is agonising is Das is financing Independent candidate Tutu Bal so that he can defeat Prafulla’ s son Pritiranjan from Sukinda,” Jena alleged.
However, Das rubbished all the charges and stated that rather it was Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who selected Zila Parishad member Rita as MP nominee from Jajpur.
Meanwhile, while the second phase polls are barely a week away, Rita has stepped up her campaign and has been moving door-to-door with party supporters to seek votes. “Naveen Patnaik and Kalpataru Das are my leaders,” said Rita.
Congress candidate Ashok Das is also campaigning in Jajpur at full speed. “Congress has a good base in Jajpur. The BJD Government is involved in the multi-crore mining scam and hence, I’m sure the voters will vote in favour of Congress,” he asserted.
BJD has a good support base in Sukinda, Dharmasala, Binjharpur, Badachana and Jajpur areas for which Rita’s chances to win the elections
are bright.
But a large number of supporters of Mohan Jena are now openly canvassing in favour of the Congress candidate. As a result, it may lead to a split in the BJD votes,
said sources.
On the contrary, BJP candidate Amiya Mallick hopes to divert a few thousands of votes of BJD. “Modi wave is sweeping in the country for which I will get maximum votes,” Amiya chuckled.