ROURKELA: Speculations over former Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram, who won Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat for the record fifth time, being marginalised by the BJP has caused discontentment in the tribal district.
A section in the saffron party strongly believes that with new power centres emerging in party’s Odisha unit, Jual’s stature is deliberately being lowered even as his name is doing the rounds as BJP’s choice as the Speaker of Lok Sabha.
Till recently Jual was the most popular tribal face of BJP in Odisha and his electoral performances were second to none with or without the Modi wave. He won as MLA from Bonai in 1990 and 1995 when BJP was a fledgling party. He resigned and won the Sundargarh Lok Sabha seat in 1998 with a margin of 1.36 lakh votes and improved his victory margin to 1.52 lakh in 1999.
When a separate Tribal Affairs Ministry was created by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jual was its first Cabinet Minister. He won from Sundargarh again in 2004 and lost narrowly in 2009. But he bounced back in 2014 and was the only non-BJD Lok Sabha MP from Odisha.
Sources said even as Jual repeated his electoral feat in the recently concluded polls, exclusion from the Modi Government which entered its second term, has shocked the party ranks and file. Many of the party’s workers still hope that Jual may be given some important constitutional responsibility given his vast political experience, administrative and leadership abilities, charming personality and easy accessibility.
Sounding sceptic about BJP’s growth in Odisha, they said Jual’s marginalisation had begun from 2014 onwards with creation of another power centre in Odisha. They accused a powerful leader from the State of using his close proximity with the top BJP leadership in New Delhi to sideline others.
Jual’s supporters said BJP won five of the eight Lok Sabha seats from western Odisha. Even if Jual was excluded, any of the other five MPs from the region should have been given a ministerial berth in the NDA Government. They said close scrutiny is needed to ascertain how BJP’s ‘Mission 120’ for Odisha was reduced to just 23 MLAs.