If UlB polls are supposed to be a yardstick to weigh the strength of parties since they are a precursor to the general elections due in early next year, it is not difficult to study ruling BJD’s position in the undivided Dhenkanal district in true perspective.
While most Assembly seats in the undivided district comprising Dhenkanal and Angul are with the BJD, barring Talcher, where Congress-supported Independent candidate is in power, the Congress seems to have upstaged the mighty BJD and wrest from it its so-called pre-eminence.
The BJD had left no stone unturned to set in motion a high-voltage campaign with the touring of the party’s heavyweights at various meetings, but that could hardly make any difference. Political observers have mostly held the dwarf and controversial leadership of the local BJD representatives responsible for the anti-incumbency wave.
The dominant figures of the BJD, Steel and Mines Minister and Angul MlA Rajanikant Singh, Parjang MlA and BJD Dhenkanal district president Nrusingh Sahoo, former Minister Sanjeev Sahu, Hindol lawmaker and former Minister Anjali Behera, apart from Dhenkanal MP Tathagata Satpathy, were largely eclipsed by the high profile campaigning of Health and Family Welfare Minister Damodar Rout during the run-up to the polls.
Rout, despite being highly controversial in his own constituency and for his remarks on erstwhile BJD policymaker Pyarimohan Mohapatra, a native of Dhenkanal, had a whirlwind tour of Dhenkanal and Talcher. He courted a controversy at Dhenkanal when he picked up a verbal duel with a local sub collector who opposed to his violation of the model code of conduct by using the official car to attend a meeting.
Dhenkanal legislator Naveen Nanda who is also in the eye of a storm for his leapfrogging from NCP to BJD is yet to shed his controversial tag. Far more bigger was the controversy which wrapped up the good things of Minister Rajanikanta Singh.
The dubious fax episode in which he got entangled from the very beginning of the UlB poll process did the irreparable damage for the party. It not only kept the Minister in a poor light for a longer period as the controversy lingered on for quite some time with the State Election Commission (SEC) directing Singh for an official probe into the episode, it also led to the transfer of the Angul Collector. Former Ministers Sanjeev Sahu and Anjali Behera are also yet to come clean of the taint of abetting a coup against Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in league with Pyarimohan Mohapatra.
Both had to lose their ministry due to their suspicious league with Mohapatra and ever since they seem to have lost their sparkle. BJD’s Parjang MlA Nrusingh Sahu is yet to keep a reliable image among the voters for his habit of changing parties. He came under different political forums in past to seek votes.
And hence, despite being a veteran leader and originally a Janata Dal stalwart who used to be quite close to former Odisha Premier Biju Patnaik, he is still to shed his brand as a sheer opportunist.
In Talcher Municipality, no doubt, BJD had got a comfortable margin. But it is not because of the miracle of the party functionaries, but because of the weak leadership of standing Independent MlA and trade union leader Brajakishore Pradhan.
Talcher had long been a forte of BJP with former MlA and current BJD leader Mahesh Sahoo winning it for three consecutive times. Sahoo has a mass base. His affable personality and closeness with the people at the grassroots had brought in him a meteoric rise from a student leader to a three-time MlA.
But his rift with BJP strongman and current MP Dharmendra Pradhan led to the collapse of the invincible BJP forte in Talcher. Sahoo quit BJP and joined BJD before the 2009 Assembly polls but that only helped him taste the bitterness of defeat. Ever since, BJD is yet to witness a leader who is reliable to the voters for his allegiance to the party.
Be that as it may, BJD’s win in Kamakhaynagar and Bhuban, of course, can be attributed to its strong grip over the voters and the leadership and their organizational ability factors. Congress, on the other hand, has risen up like a phoenix from the ashes of its continuously humiliating defeats in the Assembly elections in the past.
During the UlB electioneering, MP Amar Pradhan, besides several other leaders have played a pioneering role. Pradhan and his son have done wonder in Angul and Athamallik, while Congress’s grand old man and former PCC chief KP Singh Deo and former MlA Sudhir Samal among others also performed effectively in tackling the BJD and bringing in a tsunami in favour of the party.