BHUBANESWAR: The ruling BJD has set a target of winning at least 600 out of the 853 zilla parishad (ZP) seats in the panchayat elections. While the target of winning so many ZP seats speaks about the confidence of the ruling party, the BJP and Congress are yet to set things right to face the BJD.
Political observers said while the BJP will want to win at least half of the ZP seats keeping the 2024 Assembly elections in view, the Congress target would be to improve its position from the last poll in which it had won 62 seats.
The ruling regional outfit is way ahead of the Opposition parties as far as preparations are concerned. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has already covered all the 30 districts while distributing the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana smart health cards. He has covered all sections of people with announcement of one scheme or the other keeping an eye on the rural elections.
However, there are problem areas for the BJD. Observers said the party is not sure how the electorate of the Kalahandi will behave after the Mamita Meher murder case in which the Opposition targeted the Minister of State for Home Dibya Shankar Mishra. In the 2017 election, the BJD had drawn a blank in Kalahandi. As campaign will be done virtually because of the restrictions put into place by the State Election Commission (SEC), it remains to be seen how the BJD will approach the voters in this district.
Besides, Mayurbhanj is another district where BJD had not performed as expected in the last election. A majority of seats in the district had gone to the rival BJP. The BJP has been further strengthened this time after the induction of Bisweshwar Tudu to the Union Cabinet as Minister of State for Tribal Affairs and Jal Shakti in July last year.
Sources in the BJD maintained that other problem areas including Sundargarh and Balangir districts have been sorted out while in the undivided Koraput district the party will sweep the poll. Meanwhile, the ruling party has asked party MLAs to submit to list of ZP candidates. BJD MLA Amar Prasad Satpathy said that the regional party will win more than 600 seats. The BJP’s seat count will be less than 100 this time, he claimed.
BJP general secretary Golak Mohapatra, however, said that the party will improve performance this time and win more than 400 seats. Similarly, Ganeswar Behera of the Congress said that the party will leave no stone unturned for a good performance. He said that the party will announce manifesto for the panchayat election soon.