Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik has picked Abanti Das, the chairperson of Tihidi block and who has strong links with the women’s self-help group, as its candidate for the November 3 bypoll for the Dhamnagar Assembly seat in Bhadrak district.

The election to the seat was necessitated following the death of BJP MLA Bishnu Charan Sethi.

When the chief minister found there was dissension in his party, he relied on Mission Shakti to find a candidate for the party.

The 70 lakh women self-help group members under Mission Shakti have not only turned into a robust vote bank for Naveen, the party supremo, but have also helped him pick up leaders to represent his party in the Assembly and Parliament.

Women self-help groups under Mission Shakti, have played an important role in keeping chief minister Naveen in power. The ruling Biju Janata Dal has promoted these groups as part of a clever strategy that the Opposition has failed to read, political observers, feel.

Abanti, a few months ago, was active in organising the WSHGs in Dhamnagar area. Later, she was picked up by the party to be a member of the panchayat samiti and a few months ago she was nominated as the chairperson of the Tihidi Block.

The party feels that Abanti with a huge connection with the WSHGS in the Dhamnagar area could effectively counter the sympathy wave in favour of BJP’s candidate Suraj Suryavanshi, who was fielded as the saffron party’s candidate following the death of his father Bishnu Charan Sethi. Before giving the ticket, Naveen ensured that Abanti gets the support of the party.

However, one of the former MLA and a senior BJD leader Rajendra Das rebelled and filed the nomination paper on Thursday as an Independent candidate.

Abanti said: “I will work hard to ensure victory for the party.”

Naveen used this experiment of bringing women with strong connections with the WSHGS group when he picked up Pramila Bisoyi, a 70-year-old woman, as its candidate for the prestigious Aska Lok Sabha seat in Ganjam district in the 2019 general election. She won the seat by a huge margin.

Similarly, Naveen picked up Mamata Mahant, whose contribution to women’s empowerment, setting up WSHGS in the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district had drawn his attention.

Before picking up for the Rajya Sabha in 2020, he had ensured Mamata worked for the party’s women’s wing to get exposure in the political field.

“The Opposition has failed to counter Naveen’s strategy of using WSHGs as vote bank. The BJP had made an attempt to break the WSGHS through its Ujjwala scheme.

“But the consistent rise in the prices of gas cylinders boomeranged and the BJP was unable to gain any political mileage from it,” said political analyst Ashutosh Mishra.

However, Congress candidate Baba Harekrushna Sethi, who filed his nomination paper on Thursday, is confident of winning the byelection.

“The people of Dhamnagar are with me,” he said.