While the Assembly election results have come as heartbreaking jolt for some BJD candidates, two-time Rourkela MlA Sarada Nayak got triple blow by losing the seat, feel political circles here.
Though many had perceived that Nayak’s political career ended after he was dropped from the State Council of Ministers following the May 29, 2012 coup bid against the Chief Minister yet he managed to get a party ticket for the consecutive third time for the Rourkela Assembly seat.
Nayak got the first jolt when the results declared him defeated on Friday. Despite his all out efforts and Naveen’s personal focus on the seat, BJP candidate Dilip Ray snatched away the seat by defeating Nayak by a margin of 10,929 votes.
Apart from defeat, Nayak got two more jolts as his bête noire Subrat Tarai and Mangala Kissan won Raghunathpali and Rajgangpur respectively, feel political pundits.
Though Sarada was instrumental in bringing Tarai, an agriculture engineer, into politics in 2009, their relation turned to sour when the latter was inducted into the Naveen’s Ministry after Nayak’s removal. Since then, polarization was marked in the Rourkela BJD. The bitterness between the two was clearly marked as the two had set up separate camps during counting of votes.
Similarly, the relation between Nayak and Kissan had soured during ticket distribution for the Rajgangpur Assembly seat in 2009. While Kissan was interest for his son, Nayak facilitated a ticket for the seat to Benedict Tirkey, who lost the seat to the Congress by a thin margin of 4,115 votes. At that time, Nayak’s camp alleged that Benedict lost the seat due to sabotage played by Mangala.
The relation between the two soured again when Nayak succeeded in providing tickets to anti-Mangala people in the last Zilla Parishad elections.
Again, political thinkers feel Nayak might get another blow if either of Subrat and Mangala get a berth in the upcoming Naveen Ministry.
Meanwhile, Nayak’s fans have claimed that heir leader lost the seat to BJP’s Dilip Ray as Congress vote margin fell drastically. “If voters were annoyed with Nayak, how could he get 2000 more votes than last timeIJ” said a staunch supporter of Nayak.