The Jagatsinghpur parliamentary constituency is going to witness a very curious election this time as a mamun (uncle), BJD’s Dr Kulamani Samal, and a bhanaja (nephew), Congress’ Bibhu Prasad Tarai, are in the fray.
In the 2009 elections, Tarai had won the seat getting 4, 57,234 votes on a CPI ticket supported by the BJD. His nearest rival the Congress’ Rabindra Kumar Sethi scored 3,80,449 votes while the BJP’s Baidhar Mallick emerged third getting 99,100 votes. Similarly, Akshaya Kumar Sethi of Samruddha Odisha got 29,525 and Bibhuti Bhusan Majhi of the Bahujan Samaj Party got 16,955 votes.
But in the changed scenario this year, incumbent Tarai has filed his nomination paper on a Congress ticket. On the other hand, the BJD has fielded Dr Kulamani Samal, a popular medico of the district, as its MP candidate, who happens to be the uncle of Tarai. They both also belong to the same village, Mangarajpur, under Kujang block. As the contest has most of the time between the BJD and the Congress, this time too the contest is expected to be between the two but to be named as an uncle-nephew fight.
In 2009, all the seven Assembly segments under the lS seat were won by the BJD. This year, three local senior Congress leaders, Umesh Swain from Balikuda, Satyabrata Mohapatra (Gunda) from Jagatsinghpur town and Ramesh Samantaray from Paradip, have already resigned from the party. The exit of these leaders would impact the Congress very badly, feel some political analysts here.
Before jumping into the CPI in 2009, Bibhu Prasad Tarai was the Congress’ Kujanga block president. On winning the seat, he used to criticise the Congress and the UPA Government at the Centre day and night for the last 5 years.
“Tarai has turned opportunist in taking personal benefit. He has done little for the constituency. He was taking money while helping people,” allege some people.
On the other hand political weather blows favourably for BJD candidate Dr Samal. Besides serving people as a doctor in the Government hospitals, he has closeness with senior BJD leader Dr Damodar Rout. Besides, his association with the Paradip Port Trust as a board member is termed as an added advantage for his winning prospect.
Some voters say the uncle may bowl out his nephew, an Aayaa Raam and Gayaa Raam for various political parties.