The Paradip Municipality election are scheduled to be held in March. The ruling BJD has left no stone unturned to make its preparation for the poll, while the BJP looks no way lagging behind.
The Congress is yet to rejuvenate it though. In the last 10 years, the BJD occupied the municipality with absolute majority with winning most of the seats. But as usual in spite of all assurances and election manifesto, the BJD never fulfilled promises for which the port city of Paradip is a sick city having little development.
There is a golden chance for the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to take advantage of misgovernance of the ruling party for making a strong alternative. But the internal squabbling and groupism in both have rendered them weak to fight against BJD. The internal disturbances in Congress forced many sincere and senior party workers to leave the party.
The Congress was a strong cadre based party in Paradip having occupied Paradip Municipal council several times under the leadership of Ramesh Chandra Samantaray. Samantaray also fought against local MlA and Excise Minister Dr Damodar Rout in the 2004 Assembly poll but was defeated.
Nevertheless, he worked hard from grassroots and strongly organized Congress party till the 2009 election. But the PCC gave a new candidate Er Pramod Kishor Jena for Paradip disappointing Samantaray during the 2009 polls. Disgruntled, he filed his nomination as an independent candidate.
Because of such intra party squabbling, the Congress votes split and the party stayed in the third slot. Since 2009 Jena organised Congress party from village level and prepared for 2014 general election. But, in the last moment, the PCC did not give him ticket and instead fielded Bapi Sarkhel who too was defeated by Dr Rout in the 2014 assembly election by a close gap.
The Paradip Congress is always a sleeping party without any political activity unless the siren of election is sounded. Neither have they any own party programme nor any programme for the welfare and benefit for the public.
However, the BJP is getting its root firm under local social worker and businessman Nirmal Kumar Swain organising the BJP for the Paradip Municipality election this time, adding new members to the party in a fast pace. As a result, more than 10,000 people have joined as members of the BJP in the last two months at Paradip Township.
Senior BJP leader Bijay Kumar Mohapatra has been coming to Paradip again and again to meet party workers to boost their morale ahead of the civic body poll. BJP youth leader Pratap Chandra Mishra who was an aspirant for the Paradip Port Trust board member, also is organising meetings with Nirmal Swain and Bijay Mohapatra for the ensuing election.
Jagatsinghpur’s former Congress leader Satyabrata Mohapatra (Gunda Bhai) and Balikuda Ersama former BJD’s senior leader Raghunandan (Babuli) Das have recently joined the BJP. Their inclusion in BJP has created enthusiasm and encouragement among the BJP rank and file. The political observers are of the opinion that the BJP could win the Paradip Municipality election in 2015 provided it kept its flock together.