BJD Mahila wing president Minati Debta in her explosive allegation mentioned that the foremost reason of the party’s debacle in Rourkela seat was the hooliganism of certain party cadres promoted by Sarada Nayak.
She said though she is the district president of the BJD Mahila wing, Nayak and other party leaders did not allow her to campaign in Rourkela constituency. On the contrary, they assigned the work to a tainted Congress leader who had joined the BJD just before the elections. A habitual turncoat, she shared dais with the BJD leaders in public meetings, thus creating a wrong impression among the voters, Debta said. It is to be mentioned here that the leader had initially joined the BJP leaving the Congress and a couple of days later had crossed over to the BJD leaving the BJP.
Debta further alleged that it was a wrong decision to field Nayak as the BJD nominee as he had been entangled in a host of controversial issues. She further said that whatever votes the BJD got in Rourkela were due to the popularity of the Chief Minister. She announced that she would very soon meet Patnaik to apprise him of the poor state of the BJD in Rourkela and what needs to be done to strengthen it. Notably, earlier Debta was in Congress and a few years ago, it was Nayak who had brought her into the BJD.
Regarding the debacle in Biramitrapur constituency where Debta was working actively, she said barring a few leaders, many party cadres were not working sincerely and there was fund constraint during the campaigning, which led to the party’s debacle. Even party’s nominee Magdali Kangadi who was given ticket on the last day of nomination had no money to appoint polling agents.
Debta said though she had brought the matter to the knowledge of district president Ananada Mohanty, his reply was that the agents of MP candidate Dilip Tirkey would manage the thing for Kangadi.
“As Rourkela is a cosmopolitan city, the campaigning was not done the way it should be. Though many development works have been done in Rourkela, but due to the wrongdoings of certain cadres, the voters rejected the party,” said district BJD president Mohanty.