ROURKELA: In face of a powerful onslaught by the BJD and BJP, Congress MLA CS Razzen Ekka may find it tough to protect the grand old party’s last bastion of Rajgangpur Assembly seat in Sundargarh district.
Amid the precarious organisational strength of Congress in the district, even committed party men are not sure if Ekka would be able to retain the seat.
Pitted against Ekka is BJD’s Anil Barwa, the son of former minister and the ruling party’s state vice-president Mangla Kisan. The BJP has repeated the candidature of Narsingh Minz.
A retired Lt Colonel in the Indian Army, Ekka was working in the medial facility of L&T Works at Kansbahal in Rajgangpur block when Congress roped him in as its nominee in 2019. Ekka won but the margin was thin. Yet, he was the only Congress candidate to emerge victorious while others lost in the rest six Assembly seats in Sundargarh.
Congress insiders said as Ekka ends his tenure, his good image continues. However, he is considered as a non-performing MLA as a sizable segment of the Congress rank and file is not satisfied with him. People also struggled to access their MLA.
A senior Congress leader said with a sitting MLA, the upcoming contest in Rajgangpur is supposed to be a triangular contest. But the fight would largely be confined between BJD and BJP with the Congress finishing at a distant third.
In 2019, Ekka bagged 53,918 votes to win by a slender margin of 946 votes over Kisan who secured 52,972 votes. Significantly, BJP’s Minz finished third by securing 52,896 votes. Senior BJD leader Jitendra Das said the ruling party had swept all the zilla parishad seats and Rajgangpur municipality election in 2022. With people-oriented programmes and development activities of BJD government, the ruling party candidate will win convincingly.
Political observers said in 2019, majority of the tribal Christian votes had gone to the Congress and the rest were bagged by BJD. This time, the situation is likely to reverse as BJD’s Sundargarh Lok Sabha candidate Dilip Tirkey may pull the majority Christian votes for his party candidate in Rajgangpur.
BJP candidate Minz said majority of the voters have a strong liking for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development agenda and welfare programmes. People are getting swayed with BJP’s nationalistic ideology for a strong and developed nation. Ekka could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.