With electioneering for the April 17 twin polls in coastal districts catching up, campaigning by candidates of prominent political parties is getting high-pitched in the three Assembly constituencies of Cuttack city.
The segments of Cuttack-Barabati, Cuttack-Choudwar and Cuttack Sadar coming under the Cuttack Parliamentary seat were won by the BJD candidates in the 2009 polls. However, with campaigning during the last fortnight, the BJD bastion of Cuttack city is turning out to be a level-playing field for all the three major political parties of the State. The BJP and the Congress are hopeful of snatching away one seat each from the BJD this time.
While BJD candidate and MlA Pravat Ranjan Biswal appears to be ahead of his Congress and BJP rivals in the Cuttack-Choudwar constituency, in Cuttack Sadar BJP nominee Dillip Mallick is giving sleepless nights to his BJD and Congress contestants.Similarly, the Congress candidate in Cuttack-Barabati segment, Md Moqim, is surging ahead of his BJD and BJP rivals.
Sensing that its candidates are in trouble in the Sadar and Barabati segments, the BJD is now heavily banking on its supremo Naveen Patnaik to bail them out. Patnaik is scheduled to visit the city for next two days to canvass for the party candidates. BJD nominee Chandra Sarathi Behera in Sadar is facing acute dissidence in party rank and file.
Similarly, the party’s Barabati nominee Debashis Samantray is facing voters’ ire for his poor performance in the last term. Disenchanted with the BJD for its failure to deliver both in Assembly seats and municipal body, the intelligentsia in the city are now pinning their hopes on fresh faces who can work towards bringing back the glory of the city.
Banking on Samantray’s unpopularity, his Congress rival Moqim is now talking of bringing back the lost glory of the city as an education hub.An engineering graduate, Moqim promises one more Central School in the city, a Government engineering college and to enhance the numbers of seats in the Government colleges here.