By Priya Ranjan Sahu
For the first time, Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal supremo Naveen Patnaik is contesting for two assembly constituencies – Hinjili in Ganjam district and Bijepur in Bargarh district.
The opposition, especially Bharatiya Janata Party, alleges that Patnaik has also opted for Bijepur because of the fear of losing Hinjili. But is it so?
A trip through Ganjam district in southern Odisha makes one understand about the changing political dynamics and Patnaik’s decision to move to Bargarh district as well.
Ganjam has been traditionally an impregnable fort of the BJD since Patnaik came to power in Odisha in 2000. The chief minister has been representing Hijili for the past 19 years consecutively.
But after the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014 and focused its energy to harvest more Lok Sabha seats from Odisha in 2019 as per its ‘look east’ policy, its first target was Ganjam, Patnaik’s bastion.
The district has two Lok Sabha seats, Aska and Berhampur. It has also the state’s highest number of 13 assembly seats. The BJP has obviously worked hard to create a ground for itself and it seems to have paid up well.
While travelling through the Aska parliamentary constituency of which Hinjili is a part, this writer found that the BJP is quite visible in every assembly segment. It is a marked departure from the political scenario five years back when the Congress and CPI were the main adversaries of the BJD in the district.
“The BJP may not win a single assembly seat in Aska assembly segment. But it is an achievement on its part to replace the Congress and CPI as the main challenger to the BJD,” said Ramkrisna Sahu of Hinjili.
The BJD leadership was probably aware of the changing political equation in Ganjam and thus devised a strategy to pay the BJP back in the same coin. It decided to directly intervene in Bargarh district in western Odisha by fielding Patnaik from Bijepur assembly constituency there.
Bargarh, which has mostly been an anti-Congress area, had inched towards the saffron spell of late. During the zilla Parishad elections in 2017, the BJP rattled the BJD by winning 25 out of 34 zilla parishad seats in Bargarh.
The BJD’s strategists worked overtime to bring the district back by winning the Bijepur assembly seat, the bye-election for which was held in 2018 after the death of its sitting Congress MLA, with a record margin. And now before the 2019 elections, the BJD announced the candidature of Patnaik from Bijepur to fully capture the district.
Before Patnaik’s candidature from Bijepur, the BJP was hoping to win Bargarh Lok Sabha and most of the seven assembly segments under it. But Patnaik’s candidature from Bijepur has drastically changed the scenario and it is now very difficult for the BJP to face a BJD onslaught led by Patnaik himself.
The election results will reveal if Patnaik’s strategy will reap double harvest from Ganjam and Bargarh.
