The Chief Minister’s Secretariat and the Navin Niwas these days are agog with aspirants for the Rajya Sabha seats.
It is understood from reliable sources that a large number of aspirants stake claim for the Upper House. But everyone knows that BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik can only take a final call on the matter.
With a long list of the Rajya Sabha aspirants, the Chief Minister is understandably in a fix as to who to select from. Though it will not be difficult to select a candidate in general category for the Upper House, the party boss will certainly find it hard to choose the candidate from the SC/ST category.
The ST community is well nigh represented by Sarojini Hembram and as such, the community has its voice in the Rajya Sabha. But the SC community is disgruntled. Its MlAs disrupted the recent Assembly proceedings over the quota issue. Patnaik must be thinking to send a SC candidate to win over the community people and their representatives in the Assembly. This will also send a message of his magnanimity and deep concern for the Dalit people of the State.
In this connection the names Sipra Mallick and Bishnu Das are being discussed in the party circles. Of late, Mallick has been accorded an attractive position with the status of Principal Secretary by being nominated to Food Security Commission. But Das with his four long decades of political experience and organisational capability looks not to have been rewarded with any post so far, especially after he quit as School and mass education Minister in the wake of the HSC mark scam.
Patnaik may probably go in favour of Das, since his nomination will enable the BJD rank and file to counter the growing influence of the Biswal brothers of the Congress regime and boost the morale of the BJD party carders in Jagatsinghpur. Besides, the nomination of Das to the Upper House may end acrimony between Das and his arch rival and Excise Minister Dr Damodar Rout.
Finally Das’s nomination to Upper House as a Biju loyalist will undoubtedly appease the SC community and will help BJD strengthen its vote base during the panchayat polls in 2017 and general elections in 2019.