The BJP and the Congress, which had suffered major losses in the panchayat and urban polls held a few months ago, are gearing up to put up a tough fight against the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the Brajaraj Nagar bypoll scheduled to be held on May 31.
Election to the seat was necessitated after the death of BJD MLA Kishore Mohanty. The campaign for this western Odisha seat will come to an end on Sunday.
The BJD, on the other hand, is pulling out all stops to not only retain the seat but also win it by a record margin. Several ministers and top-ranking BJD leaders are set to hit the campaign trail in the western Odisha constituency. “We will win this one by more than 25,000 votes,” health minister Naba Kishore Das, who has been made in-charge of the BJD campaign, told The Telegraph.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who heads the list of party’s star campaigners, is yet to campaign in the constituency physically. In the last few by-elections, the chief minister had avoided physical campaigning.
The party has picked Mohanty’s wife Alaka as its candidate, hoping to create a sympathy wave in her favour. Alaka is locking horns with former BJP MLA Radharani Panda, a protege of Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, and Congress’s Kishore Chandra Patel, a former minister and a known face in western Odisha.
“But the rebel factor at the local level may pose a challenge to the winning prospects of different parties. We are now focusing on addressing the grievance of the local leaders at the panchayat level,” BJD leader Satyajit Mishra said.
Determined to end the BJD’s victory streak, the BJP is deploying all its resources to win the bypoll.
Union minister Dharmendra has already campaigned for Panda.
The Congress, under new president Sarat Pattanayak, would try hard to improve its position in Brajaraj Nagar. The seat was a Congress bastion from 1995 to 2014. The Congress has also got the support of the party leaders from neighbouring Chhattisgarh, which is being ruled by the party. All the senior Congress leaders have already hit the campaign trail and are working hard to ensure a Congress victory. “We will win the seat. People’s support is with us as they have seen both the BJP and the BJD and are unhappy with them,” said senior Congress MLA Suresh Routray.
In 2014, the BJP had snatched away the seat from the Congress as there was a wave in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But it failed to retain the seat in 2019 when the BJD won it with a convincing margin of 10,000 votes.
“Election to the Brajaraj Nagar constituency is considered to be an acid test for the Opposition parties ahead of the general election in 2024. For the BJD, it is an opportunity to further consolidate its position in the state,” political observer Prashant Mishra said.
Nearly 11 candidates are in the bypoll fray. “There is likely to be a triangular contest as the BJP and the Congress have their own vote banks,” Mishra said.
Stakes are high for the BJD because vacancy in Brajaraj Nagar has been created by the death of its sitting MLA. If the party loses the election, it will dent its credibility and also the image of the chief minister ahead of the 2024 general elections. The other important reason for the BJD attaching great importance to the seat is that the constituency happens to be part of western Odisha where the BJP has a strong base. The saffron party holds all the five Lok Sabha seats in the region. A BJD victory in Brajaraj Nagar will be a signal to the people that the BJP is losing base in western Odisha. This would help the BJD in the 2024 general elections.
