The three major parties in the State, the BJD, the BJP and the Congress, are under pressure for the polls to be held for the two Assembly constituencies, Patkura in Kendrapada district and Bijepur in Bargarh district.
Election in Patkura was countermanded due to the death of BJD candidate Bed Prakas Agarwalla while Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has vacated the Bijepur seat.
This will be third election in Bijepur in less than two years. A by-election had been held in the constituency in 2018 due to the death of Congress MLA Subal Sahu in which Sahu’s wife Ritarani won as BJD candidate convincingly.
There was strong resentment in the BJP in the constituency as it had fielded a former BJD leader and the benefit was reaped by the ruling party as the contest was a straight one between the BJD and the BJP.
The Congress which did enter the fray, rather reluctantly, was not in the reckoning.
However, Naveen Patnaik contested from Bijepur m this year’s general elections along with from his traditional Hinjli seat in Ganjam district.
Patnaik won both seats and has now resigned fromBijepur.
The situation is interesting for the Bijepur by-poll as the BJP has won five Lok Sabha seats, including Bargarh, in western Odisha while the Assembly segments have been captured by the BJD. So, a win in Bijepur has become a prestige issue for both the BJD and the BJP.
In Patkura, BJP leader Bijay Mohapatra is pitted against Bed Prakash Agarwalla’s widow Sabitri. Mohapatra has been out of the Assembly for nearly two decades after Naveen
Patnaik dropped him at the last minute to provide a chance to Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak in Patgkura in the 2000 elections.
Mohapatra later joined the BJP but unsuccessfully contested elections as its candidate in 2014. Now, he is again the BJP nominee for Patkura.
The Patkura Assembly segment falls under the Kendrapara Lok Sabha constituency, from which BJP nominee Baijayant Panda was defeated in this year’s election by his BJD rival
Anubhav Mohanty by a margin of over one lakh votes. Moreover, all the seven Assembly seats under the Lok Sabha constituency were swept by the BJD.
The Congress, which received a severe drubbing in the recently-concluded general elections, expects to try its luck to win in both Patkura and Bijepur.