Samikhsya Bureau
Bharatiya Janata Party’s national spokesman Sambit Patra’s campaign kick-off from Puri has faced a rough weather following his act of using the image of Lord Jagannath as a material for poll campaign. Patra is the Lok sabha candidate for Puri and as a debutant he has allegedly over-stepped the Model Code of Conduct by using the image of lord Jagannath.
Obviously, the issue being very sensitive and intricately linked with the mass sentiment, Patra’s act of stoking the people’s sentiment by holding the image of the Lord has not gone well with the opposition.
However, a compliant in this regard was lodged with the election authorities by the Congress. The question has been raised as how could Patra came out in a kind of procession holding the image of the deity without the prior approval from the concerned authorities. He has been . reportedly, issued with a show-cause notice from the authorities to explain himself in three days. That is the official position.
Critics , however, give to understand that there was an element of political greed in Patra’s act because the election is about votes where any use or misuse of the image, idol or motif of any religious nature has no role.
To kick-start the campaign after a ‘darshan ‘ of the Lord is different than holding the image under public gaze, is different. Political observers, somehow, sense a kind of desperation on the part of Dr.Patra making use of the image of Lord Jagannath for intended political over-reach.
Sambit Patra, who belongs to Odisha, knows it very well that the use of religious sentiment in a place like Puri is always a dividend-rich recourse to stoke sentiments. It may not be a designed political tool under any ill-intent from Patra but , inadvertently he has sidestepped the rules propelled more by a kind of clever political gimmick rather than serious politics. After all one can’t make an admixture of religion and poll politics .
