ROURKELA: Amid reports of rift in BJD’s Birmitrapur unit over the candidature of Rohit Joseph Tirkey, the ruling party candidate on Thursday said he is confident of securing a comprehensive victory over sitting BJP MLA Shankar Oram.
Accompanied by his father George Tirkey, a four-time MLA of Birmitrapur, and supporters, Rohit told local mediapersons that he will secure over one lakh votes and win the Assembly seat comprehensively. He claimed there is no rift in BJD over his candidature and said most of the sarpanchs, panchayat samiti and zilla parishad members of Birmitrapur are with him.
He further claimed there is a massive anti-incumbency wave against the sitting BJP legislator and accused Shankar of not staying in the constituency and working for the people during his five-year tenure.
Rohit alleged that a misinformation campaign has been launched by his opponents about the rift. “After Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced my candidature, all senior leaders of BJD and the party’s rank and file in the constituency have accepted the decision and are supporting me. I am reaching out to people highlighting the all-round development activities and welfare programmes of the BJD government,” he said.
George said during his four terms as Birmitrapur MLA, he carried out a lot of development works and voters from across the constituency have overwhelming support for Rohit.
In 2019, Rohit contested the election from Birmitrapur on a Congress ticket and came third with 44,212 votes against 60,937 votes secured by Shankar. BJD nominee Maklu Ekka was at the second spot with 44,586 votes.
Recently, a host of senior BJD leaders of Birmitrapur quit the party protesting Rohit’s candidature.