BHUBANESWAR: With elections come the season of defection as political leaders switch parties to remain on the winning side and enjoy power. But this strategy appears to have failed in the State this time as most of the turncoats were unable to turn the tide in their favour in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
As many as 26 leaders had jumped sides to contest the elections this time, but only nine tasted success. Of eight leaders who had tried their luck in LS polls, one came out successful while eight out of 18 in fray for Assembly elections were victorious.
Prominent among the leaders who had switched parties are Baijayant Panda, Chandra Sekhar Sahu, Balabhadra Majhi, Jayaram Pangi, Panchanan Kanungo, Bibhu Prasad Tarai, Dr Debasish Marandi, Abhimanyu Sethi, Naba Kishore Das, Raghunath Mohanty, Damodar Rout, Prakash Behera and Krushna Chandra Sagaria.
While four-time MP Baijayant, former MP Jayaram and seven-time MLA Damodar had joined BJP after they were expelled from BJD, former BJD MP Balabhadra joined the saffron outfit after he was denied the ruling party ticket.
Abhimanyu, son of eight-time BJD MP from Bhadrak Arjun Charan Sethi and five-time MLA Raghunath had joined BJP apprehending that they may be denied party ticket. Debashis, who had contested 2014 Lok Sabha elections on JMM ticket, quit the party to become the BJD nominee from Mayurbhanj this election.
Similarly, former Jagatsinghpur MP from Congress Bibhu Prasad had joined BJP after he was denied party ticket. Former Union Minister Chandra Sekhar had resigned from Congress and joined BJD last year.
Other leaders including Jogesh Singh and Kusum Tete from Sundargarh, Rajkishore Das from Morada, Surendra Pramanik from Soro, Kishore Chandra Naik from Kuchinda, Sukanta Nayak from Nilagiri and K Narayan Rao from Paralakhemundi had also switched sides before the elections, hoping to bolster their chances to become members of the Legislative Assembly. However, at least 47 of them lost the polls.
The election caused heart-break for heavyweight leaders like Baijayant, Damodar and Raghunath as they lost to their rivals miserably. In Kendrapara, BJP national vice president Baijayant was defeated by BJD’s Anubhav Mohanty with a margin of 1,52,584 votes. He polled 4,76,355 votes against Anubhav’s 6,28,939.
Damodar was pushed to third position in Balikuda-Erasama Assembly segment as he managed to poll only 37,611 votes. BJD’s Raghunandan Das polled 1,03,814 votes to win the seat with Lalatendu Mohapatra of Congress coming second with 49,231 votes.
Raghunath too came a distant third in Basta as BJD’s Nityananda Sahoo polled 71,737 votes to win the seat for the second consecutive time. Bijan Nayak of Congress, a political greenhorn, managed to poll 59,873 votes to finish at the second position.
The surprise win, however, came for Kusum from Sundargarh and Jayant from Puri. Kusum had quit BJD after the party reposed faith on turncoat Jogesh, who jumped from Congress to the regional outfit. Similarly, Jayant, a former Puri municipality chairperson, defeated ex-minister Maheswar Mohanty by a slender margin of 4,006 votes. He had quit BJD and joined BJP before the polls.