Rajya Sabha BJD member Prasanna Acharya seems to have revolted against the party leadership’s move to field deceased Congress MlA Subal Sahu’s wife Rita Sahu as the party candidate in the coming by-election in the Bijepur Assembly constituency in Acharya’s Bargarh district.
Acharya, also a BJD spokesperson, on Sunday said, “No final decision as to who would be the party nominee has been taken.” Party president and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik would hold talks with “all levels of party leaders” before selecting a candidate, he told media, adding that a notification for holding of the by-poll is yet to be published.
Acharya and his supporters were conspicuously absent at the much-publicised event of Rita Sahu and other members of her family joining the BJD at the party office here on Saturday in the presence of Naveen Patnaik.
While referring to media reports that Rita Sahu would be the BJD’s Bijepur candidate, Acharya in his reaction on Sunday questioned, “Has the Chief Minister announced the name (of the candidate)IJ This clearly betrayed his opposition to Rita Sahu’s candidature.
In fact, Naveen Patnaik had only welcomed the Sahu family of the Congress to the BJD fold. But Rita Sahu along with her son Sumit told media that she would contest the by-poll necessitated by her husband’s death.
Rita Sahu and Sumit might have been undiplomatic in making their statements instead of saying that it was up to the BJD supremo to decide on who would be the candidate. But what they stated was construed as the truth since Naveen Patnaik must have assured Rita Sahu about her candidature. Otherwise, why didn’t Patnaik tell her beforehand not to disclose now that she would be the candidateIJ
Moreover, the reason of bringing the Sahu family into the BJD is clear: to benefit from the sympathy vote for the deceased MlA’s wife. Would there be sympathy vote without the widow becoming the candidateIJ
If Prasanna Acharya does not want Rita Sahu as the candidate, it is for his own reasons. Either he himself wants to be the party nominee or to make someone else. Notably, he had lost the 2014 election to Subal Sahu by a slender margin of about 500 votes.