The Bijepur Assembly seat in Bargarh district became vacant after the demise of Congress MLA Subal Sahu on August 21 last year. At the time of the MLA’s death, there was an election case in the Orissa High Court challenging his victory in the 2014 Assembly election filed by his competitor of BJD Prasanna Acharya.
The HC closed the election dispute on October, 2017 on the ground of death of the MLA and paved the way for the by-poll. The poll can bedeclared at any time in January. On the ground, the voter list is in the finalisation stage and the BJP and the BJD are engaged in poll preparation activities while INC is all but inactive.
Out of the five Assembly constituencies of Bargarh district, Padamapur had gone to the BJP in 2014 poll while Bijepur, Bargarh, Atabira and Bhatli had gone to the BJD. The constituency was reorganised in 2009, consisting of Barpali NAC, sixteen GPs of Barpali Block, Bijepur Block and Gaisilet Block. Gaiselt was newly added. Historically, the MLA candidates have emerged from Barpali. The constituency has basically an agrarian economy with better agriculture in Barpali and Bijepur and more of dry land and poverty in Gaiselet. Bijepur and Barpali have dry areas too. Irrigation is a major problem here. There is dominance of Kolta, Teli, SC, Meher castes.
The BJD occupied the old Assembly seat during its maiden Assembly election in 2000. Ashok Panigrahi, Barpali, a Biju-follower, had won. But Panigrahi lost to the new INC candidate late Subal Sahoo in 2004 poll. Sahoo was an OBC from Barpali and a BJD follower who won in INC ticket bagging 53 per cent votes, leaving the BJD candidate with 36 per cent vote share.
The 2009 poll was fought in the reorganised constituency. The BJD tried a new candidate, Prabhat Aditya Mishra, who bagged 34 per cent votes but lost to the INC candidate, Sahoo. The reorganised constituency, however, pulled down INC votes from 53 per cent to 41 per cent while the BJD remained at almost the same level, dropped by 2 per cent only.
The BJD again changed its candidate in 2014 Assembly poll by giving ticket to Prasanna Acharya, who lost by less than 500 votes to Sahoo. Interestingly, in 2014, the INC’s vote share fell from 41 per cent to 32.15 per cent while BJD’s vote share remained at 31.88 per cent, with a marginal drop of 2 per cent. The 9 per cent of INC votes drifted to the BJP and to the BJD’s dissident independent Ashok Panigrahi along with new votes. The data does not support the argument that Panigrahi took away massive votes of the BJD to cause the defeat of Acharya in 2014. On the other hand, the repeated poll statistics indicate the presence of some structural problems in the BJD due to which its vote share wavered between 30 per cent and 36 per cent.
The 2017 ZP (PRI) election which was a symbol-based election, showed a surprise trend. Out of the total ZP votes 1, 63,758, BJP got 91,688 (55 per cent) votes, followed by the BJD with 45,110 (28 per cent) and the INC with 27, 974 (17 per cent) votes. This means a large number of BJD and Congress votes were diverted to the BJP due to dissidents or the compromised leaders of the BJD and the INC or the voters’ choice. This swing of votes gave six out of seven ZP seats in the constituency to the BJP and left the BJD with only one ZP seat in the Bijepur Block.
After the death of Sahoo, the BJD has co-opted Sahoo’s widow and declared her its nominee for the coming by-election. The BJD might have calculated four factors to take such a decision, such as late MLA’s sympathy vote, jumbo effect of the BJD and the INC votes, factionalism in the BJP and the caste factor . But this is the first experiment of a defected sympathy-vote. In Odisha, widows of sitting MLAs or a MP used to win by-elections when they had contested from the same party.
Some BJD cadres feel that the selection of Sahoo’s wife Rita Sahoo as BJD nominee was a wrong decision as it has created conflict between the old and the new BJD cadres. There are other challenges for the BJD too. The sympathy wave has weakened gradually. Though all Barpali NAC Councilors and Barpali Block PS members of INC have joined the BJD, the dissident Subal-INC cadres have not joined. The candidate is also weak in comparison to BJD’s competitors. On the other hand, the BJD has the by-poll management advantage as the ruling party. It has already declared a mega irrigation project for the constituency and the Bijepur NAC.
The BJP is in advantageous position in the fray as it had obtained 55 per cent votes in 2017- ZP election. The BJP’s weakness is the absence of a constituency leader and sound GP base. The induction of former BJD MLA Panigrahi to the BJP and his projection as the BJP candidate has plugged the Assembly level leadership weakness. To strengthen the GP level-base, the BJP has been organizing various Panchayat meetings and ‘Misrana Parbas”. Though Paigrahi’s entry also caused some resistance in the local BJP and led to the defection of its district president Narayan Sahoo to the BJD, its effect is localized unlike resistance in the BJD.
For the INC, the death of its MLA and the defection of his widow to the BJD are twin blows. It is difficult for the INC to repair and retain the seat due to time constraint. At the same time, it can be said that the INC could be wiped out from the constituency if it drops to the third position in the by-poll. There are two probable candidates such as the former MLA Ripunath Seth of Barpali and Pranay Sahoo, vice chairman of Gaiselt Panchyat Samitee . The INC candidate may not be able to win but can decide the winner. However, the local INC leaders are still hopeful of Rahul Gandhi’s intervention to retain the seat.
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