PARADIP: Amid serious discontentment over candidature of Sambit Routray from Paradip Assembly constituency, the local BJD leaders and workers on Tuesday put forth a freakish condition before the party high command in order to agree to rally behind him.
In a meeting held at Sandhpur, different groups of BJD leaders of Kujang block and Paradip Municipality came together and agreed to support Routray only if his father Damodar Rout campaigns for him in Paradip and he does the same for BJD MLA candidate from Balikuda-Erasama Assembly segment Raghunandan Das.
Kujang block BJD unit president Narendra Parida said the party leaders and workers are irked over Routray’s candidature from Paradip Assembly segment. He said the workers had been seeking Debasish’s nomination from the seat.
Besides Debasish, several others from the ruling party were eyeing the segment. However, Routray’s nomination led to a revolt of sorts in the party ranks in Jagatsinghpur. Workers also went to the extent of staging demonstration in front of party supremo’s residence Naveen Nivas shouting the slogan, ‘Sambit Hatao, Paradip Bachao’. Paradip Urban BJD unit president Sumant Kumar Biswal, Paradip Municipality chairman Basant Kumar Biswal, party leaders Gobind Tarai, Tapan Samantray, Prakash Parida and others were present in the meeting.
Earlier, after Routray was nominated by BJD from Paradip, Dama had stated he and his son have separate political agenda. He had said he would not campaign for his son as he is contesting from Balikuda-Erasama Assembly seat on a BJP ticket.