The Shergada police station in Ganjam district looks like a well-protected fortress as there is an apprehension of Maoist attack on it.
The Red rebels had bumped up a school building at Bandhaguda, a nearby village about a year back. About eight villages in the Shergada area are under the shadow of Maoist activities.Ironically, the area falls under Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Assembly constituency, Hinjili, which went to polls on Thursday.
Patnaik, who has already made three times from the constituency, has only been increasing his margins since he fought the 2000 elections. The margin in 2000 was 26,417. In 2009, Naveen had won the seat by defeating his nearest Congress rival Raghaba Parida by a margin of 61,273 votes.
This time, there was no sign of electioneering in Hinjili. One had to search for BJD publicity materials like the posters, festoons, billboards on the main street of the Hinjili town.Bookies here are not betting on who will win but who would finish the second. BJP candidate Debendra Mohapatra, who has been contesting against Patnaik since 2000, is boasting that this time he would finish second getting over 30,000 votes. last time, he had finished third after the Congress with a meagre 8,000 votes.
“Modi wave is going to help me garner more votes this time,” said Mohapatra. His confidence stems from the fact that for the first time in the election history, the BJP’s flag appeared in at Takarada, the native village of veteran communist leader Nityananda Pradhan.
Takarada, with 1,200 families of hardcore communists, had never allowed any other political party to enter the village. Pradhan, who had joined the BJD in 2009 and became the MP from Aska, has been denied a ticket this time by Patnaik.
The Congress fielded a new face, Sibaram Patra, while the Aam Aadmi Party nominated Mohammad Sajij Hussai in this constituency. The other candidates in the fray are Samata Kranti Dal’s Rabi Ratha, Trinamool Congress’ Harihar Sahu, Aama Odisha Party’s Bijay Mohanty and Independent Ramakrushna Das.
Patnaik’s election managers Bhaskar Panda, a retired tehsildar of Hijili, Surya Pradhan, block chairman and one D Biswanath were just whiling away their time sitting in the party office for the outcome of the election here is a foregone conclusion.