Withthe selection of Sambalpur MlA Jayanarayan Mishra as its leader of the legislature Party, closely following the choice of Patnagarh legislator KV Singh Deo as the State party president, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have sent out a message that its main focus is on the western part of the State in view of the ensuing general elections.
The party appears to have consciously chosen the veteran leaders belonging to the western region’s major districts of Sambalpur and Balangir, respectively, for its two most important positions.
Mishra is a consecutive three-time MlA from the Sambalpur constituency while Singh Deo has been representing Balangir district’s Patnagarh seat for as many as four times. They, along with only four other party legislators, were elected in the 2009 polls defying the general trend against the saffron party. And both were Ministers during the BJD-BJP coalition regime prior to 2009.
The BJP’s central leadership seems to have strongly felt that the party has to further strengthen its support base in the State’s western belt by projecting its veterans from the region. Political observers are of the view that the BJP should also have an agenda to concentrate on another major district in the western belt, Kalahandi, where it lost its initiative to the Congress in the 2009 elections.
The other western district of Sundargarh, which was also a BJP stronghold earlier, has to be given attention to, the observers feel. This is now a difficult district for the party in view of former State party president and former Union Minister Jual Oram being a strong intra-party opponent of Singh Deo. The BJP high command has to work out a strategy for bringing about reconciliation between the two leaders for an overall benefit of the party, the observers feel, pointing out that Oram lost the last lok Sabha polls to the Congress from Sundargarh by a slender margin.