Former Dhenkanal MP, former Union Minister and former PCC president KP Singh Deo and Dhenkanal BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy are increasingly getting closer. The two known for their traditional rivalry in Dhenkanal politics, one representing the Royal family and the other a former Chief Minister’s (Nandini Satpathy) family, are found attending functions together and exchanging pleasantries these days.
While observers say the rapprochement could be to keep Suparno Satpathy, a Nandini family member and promising leader of Dhenkanal, at bay, they also opine that this could weaken the Congress base in the undivided Dhenkanal district.
MP Satpathy is known as a traditional political rival of Singh Deo for over last four decades. Their rivalry was best proved in the Sanskruti Bhawan issue. Satpathy was instrumental in the transfer of two District Cultural Officers from Dhenkanal for refusing to oblige him in removing a marble stone from the Bhawan’s wall in which the name of KP Singh Deo was inscribed. Satpathy had released funds from MPlAD for the building and was hardly consistent with the idea of the credit going to Sing Deo. Due to the rivalry, the Sanskruti Bhawan could not be inaugurated and fell unused for long years.
However, Satpathy and Singh Deo came close before the 2014 general elections. Instead of contesting election from Dhenkanal MP seat, Singh Deo rather preferred to hand over the Congress ticket to a less known man and his close confidant, late Chandra Sekhar Tripathy. Had Singh Deo locked horn with Satpathy, it would not have been a cakewalk for the latter. Singh Deo also did not let Suparno get the ticket as he was an aspirant and could have given a tough challenge to Satpathy. So in a sense, Singh Deo facilitated Satpathy’s victory from the Dhenkanal Parliamentary seat for the second consecutive time.
A few months after the polls, Singh Deo and Satpathy were seen sitting with former Union Minister Srikant Jena at Talcher in an official public meeting conducted for the purpose of renovation of Talcher fertiliser plant. Congress repeated the same blunder of fielding wrong candidates in the 2014 general elections. The party could not tap the anti-incumbency factor and pro-Singh Deo wave in Hindol, Kamakhyanagar and Angul Assembly constituencies which could have also helped Congress to win the seats. During the year 2009, Satpathy became close to Singh Deo as Suparno was their common enemy. Presently the traditional political rivalry between late Nandini Satpathy family and Dhenkanal royal family which had been continuing since 1973 seems to have come to an end as Singh Deo even being in Congress is behaving as if he is a non-entity.
Satpathy too seems to be expressing his silent obligation for Singh Deo as he attended as a guest at the centenary festival of Rajashree Surapratap held in October, 2014 just after the general elections. They were seen in one stage during the annual function organised by Delhi Public School in Dhenkanal recently.