BHUBANESWAR: Even as Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has engaged seven Ministers and 18 MLAs to ensure victory for its candidate Sabitri Agarwalla in Patkura election scheduled on July 20, no senior leader of the BJP is yet to visit the constituency to campaign for party nominee Bijay Mohapatra who seems to be fighting a lone battle to enter the assembly after 19 long years.
Besides, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is also likely to campaign in Patkura at least for two days to ensure a comprehensive victory for the BJD candidate.
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Sources said the BJD supremo has made the Patkura election a prestige issue and set a huge victory target for the Ministers and MLAs.
He has asked at least half a dozen of party leaders to station themselves in each of the 51 gram panchayats in the constituency.
Senior Ministers who have been assigned the task of ensuring an easy victory for Sabitri are Prafulla Mallik, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Arun Sahoo, Sushant Singh, Samir Dash, Raghunandan Das and Dibya Shankar Mishra.
The Chief Minister has asked the MLAs to work under the supervision of the Ministers in the areas assigned to them.
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On the other hand, Bijay has launched a door-to-door campaign in the constituency and is banking on the resentment among BJD workers over the candidature of Sabitri, widow of the late Bed Prakash Agarwalla. Bijay, a founding member of BJD, quit the party before the 2000 Assembly elections after he was denied a ticket from Patkura, a seat from which he had won four times.
After parting ways with Naveen, Bijay, however, has failed to win from the seat in 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections. This time too, Bijay is faced with a difficult situation as the entire top leadership of BJD has descended on the constituency to ensure his defeat.
Election to Patkura seat was postponed twice, first due to the death of BJD candidate Bed Prakash and then for cyclone Fani.
Counting of votes for the seat will be held on July 24.