By Samikhsya Bureau
After several trysts with failures Bijoy Mohapatra has once again started his roller coaster ride towards Patkura in Kendrapada district, for a political survival. This senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader’s path to comeback remained a tough one and his consecutive attempts at re-entering the Odisha Assembly still remains an uphill task.
More so, when he confronts the might of a ruling dispensation which has been successful in braving a nationwide Modi wave in the recent polls and could, for the fifth time, made an impressive comeback to power in the state.
It was not only the comeback but the BJD, has, meanwhile, smoothed the barbs from the Bharatiya Janata Party by virtue of an unwritten truce with the latter through political maneuvers mutually conducive. Be it supporting the candidature of Ashwini Vaishnav or stand by Modi on ‘one nation, one election’ issue or on the Lok Sabha speakers’ election, Naveen Patnaik could handle things to win the goodwill of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Home minister Amit Shah.
Which may go a long way to tone down the attacks from BJP’s central leadership campaigning in Patkura. That leaves the BJP state leaders to do the saber rattling from the sidelines only.
As reports indicate that the Biju Janata Dal has already been there in Patkura with all guns blazing to see that Mohapatra’s hope for winning the Patkura assembly seat is made very difficult. Ministers, MLAs and members from the BJD, accomplished with task of poll management, have pitched the tents there.
All the assembly segments in Kendrapada Lok sabha constituency have gone in favour of the BJD in the last election and that makes things more easy for the BJD candidate, Sabitri Agarwal, the widow of Bed Prakash Agarwal, whose sudden demise after filing the nomination necessitated the polls in Patkura to be postponed and then it was further delayed by the Election Commission in view of the propagated fears from the cyclone Fani.
Now Patkura is agog with campaigns where leaders from the BJD and the BJP already doing the jobs. BJD has plans to have the chief minister Naveen Patnaik, there to campaign for Sabitri Agarwal.
Whereas, the BJP’s campaign brigade is spearheaded by three senior leaders , each of whom have suffered defeat in the recent election.
Mohapatra now can pin his hopes on the Prime Minister, Modi, if at all his campaign for Mohapatra is in the schedule. Else, it will be tough for the BJP to make any decisive dent in Naveen’s bastion.
