Especially after the BJD is facing a tough situation with alleged involvement of several leaders in land and chit fund scams, threatening to sully its image and the BJP trying to take the space of the major Opposition and eyeing to capture power in the 2019 polls, the Kandhamal lok Sabha bypoll to be held on October 15 is fraught with meaning for both the parties.
Already the BJP has declared its candidate for the seat. Barely a day after BJD renegade Rudra Madhab Ray left the BJD and joined the BJP, the saffron party made him the party nominee.
Ever since the by-election was declared following the demise of BJD sitting MP Hemendra Singh, the BJP has been going very calculative about it since it wants to wrest the seat from the BJD by capitalising several factors. They are: Its Government at the Centre, the BJD infighting and the scams.
A possible win in the Kandhmal bypoll could give the State BJP a shot in the arm, bolster its position to attack the BJD and may pave its way to win power in the State ahead. Ray is the first MP from Kandhamal after it was made a Parliamentary constituency with seven Assembly segments during delimitation in 2008. But Ray had won the seat in BJD ticket by defeating BJP’s Ashok Sahu. He was not given ticket in May 2014 elections by the BJD and later suspended from the party for anti-party activities. Ray is also a three -time MlA. The BJP’s Sukanta Panigrahi had lost the polls in May last and stood in the third position.
Though names of Sahu, Panigrahi and Bijay Mohapatra too figured in the list of prospective nominees of the BJP, finally it was Ray that was approved by the Central BJP. The saffron party picked up Ray ostensibly because of his popularity, experience and his ability to dent the BJD votes.
“If the BJP wins the Kandhamal lS seat, except just adding another number to the brute majority of the party in the Parliament, it will not make any major difference to the ruling party in the Centre. But certainly, it will facilitate the local development of the constituency,” said senior BJP leader Surama Padhi.
She said that the people of the State have now come to know the real face of the ruling BJD in the State in the last 100 days of its governance in the 4th term with several scams coming to the fore.
At the same time, they have been experiencing a growth momentum initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi- led NDA Government in the Centre over this period.
Padhi was confident that the people of the constituency who are mostly backward must prefer growth over blank promises of the scam-ridden BJD. The BJD, however, is in no mood to let the seat slip from hand. Though it is yet to declare its nominee, in all probability it would field deceased MP Hemendra Singh’s widow Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh as the candidate for the by-poll.
The BJD has a strong clout in the constituency with a majority of the Assembly seats having been in its pocket. This apart, sympathy wave would be a big factor. The only motto to field deceased Singh’s widow is to seize upon the sympathy factor.
“The BJD is by far in the best position in Kandhamal. It has money, strong organisation and sympathy factor to its advantage. Rudramadhav Ray may cut into BJD’s vote size to some extent, which would be limited to Dasapalla, but as a whole, the party would be able to beat the Ray threat and exploit all its means to retain the seat,” said a political analyst here.
Congress’s procrastination seems to be quite clear so far as its candidate selection is concerned. Though OPCC president Jayadev Jena said a team of observers had already given their report and the Central leadership had been recommended the names, it is still not clear who could be the possible nominee.
However, the names of two former MPs Bhakta Das and Pradeeep Majhi and former MlA Abhimanyu Behera have been doing the round. Notably Congress’s Harihar Karan had been in the second position by securing 2, 40,411 votes in the last general elections.