BHUBANESWAR: It's
bypoll for an assembly seat where the elected
MLA will have hardly one year term, but the
BJP and the BJD have turned it into a battle of strength as the outcome will be seen as preface to 2019 simultaneous
Lok Sabha and Odisha Vidhan Sabha elections.
The ensuing bypoll scheduled on February 24 was necessary after the death of sitting Congress MLA Subal Sahu on August 22.
The BJP has submitted a list of 40 star campaigners led by party president
Amit Shah to the Election Commission of India, apart from at least seven Union ministers including Smriti Irani, Radha Mohan Singh, Ram Kripal Yadav, Babul Supriyo, Giriraj Singh apart from Jual Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan from Odisha.
While the state BJP is still not sure if the party boss will come for just an assembly bypoll, some party leaders said Shah is likely to campaign for a day. They give two reasons behind this. After losing two Lok Sabha seats and an assembly seat in the BJP-ruled Rajasthan recently, the saffron party will try its best to win here. The victory is more important because winning Bijepur will be seen as emergence of BJP in 2019 when the incumbent Naveen Patnaik government will complete 19 years in a row.
Though BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma had said earlier that Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh will hit the campaign trail, his name is not among BJP's star campaigners. Speculation is rife whether the BJP dropped his name because of its anticipated fallout in the wake of the ongoing Odisha-Chhattisgarh dispute over sharing Mahanadi water.
Naveen, who had stayed away from campaigning in three-tier panchayat elections in February last year, is tentatively scheduled to campaign on February 19 and February 21, party insiders said.
BJP's Ashok Panigrahi, who represented Bijepur on a BJD ticket in 2000-2004, had polled 18,232 votes as a BJD rebel candidate in 2014. The BJP hopes to add that to party's increased vote share.
In the Zilla Parishad election in February last year, the BJP had won six out of seven ZP zones in Bijepur. The saffron party had got around 92,000 votes, the BJD got 44,000 and the Congress around 27,000. In the 2014 election, then BJP candidate Jayshankar Pattnaik had got 30,001 votes. Then BJD candidate Prasanna Acharya had polled 52,832 while winner Subal Sahu had got 53,290.
The BJD hopes it will add a large chunk of votes polled for Subal with its tally this since it has fielded his wife Rita Sahu. The Congress also hopes to beat the odds with a fresh face, Pranay Sahu, by consolidating Kulita community, who dominate Bijepur.
