BHUBANESWAR: If there is one constituency in Odisha to watch for in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, it is Sambalpur where two of the biggest political heavyweights of the state, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan of BJP and BJD organisation secretary Pranab Prakash Das are locked in a high-profile battle for ballot.
The ruling BJD took everyone by surprise by fielding Das from Sambalpur, an epicentre of western Odisha politics with a strong bias towards the coastal region of the state. Never before had any political party dared such an experiment.
While Das, a three-time MLA from Jajpur and second-in-command in the BJD structure, accepted the challenge thrown to him by the party to take on Pradhan, the Union minister, though does not have the outsider baggage as he was once elected from the erstwhile Deogarh Lok Sabha seat in 2004.
After the delimitation exercise in 2008, the Deogarh Lok Sabha seat comprising Pallahara, Talcher, Brajarajnagar, Jharsuguda, Laikera, Kuchinda and Deogarh Assembly segments ceased to exist with the formation of Bargarh Lok Sabha constituency. Two Assembly constituencies of Pallahara and Talcher merged with Dhenkanal Lok Sabha seat while Brajarajnagar and Jharsuguda segments became part of Bargarh Lok Sabha. Kuchinda and Deogarh are now under the Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat.
The Deogarh Parliamentary seat was also represented by his father former Union Minister Debendra Pradhan in 2000. After winning from the seat in 2004, the Pradhan junior fought the Assembly elections in 2009 from Pallahara but lost. He has since been away from direct electoral politics and was involved in organisational activities before becoming a minister in the Modi cabinet as a Rajya Sabha MP in 2014 and continued after 2019.
While he is returning to the electoral fray after 15 years, it is still an advantageous terrain for him as he is fairly acquainted with the political contours of the Parliamentary constituency and has the acceptability of the people as one among them as he hails from Talcher of Angul district.
Sambalpur was once a Congress bastion, but the grand old party has been vanquished from the constituency ever since BJD and BJP allied in 1998. BJD veteran Prasanna Acharya was elected thrice from the seat in 1998, 1999 and 2004 but the party lost to Amar Pradhan of Congress in 2009. However, the BJD retained the seat in 2014 by relegating the sitting MP Pradhan to third position. Suresh Pujari of the BJP secured the second position.
In 2019, the BJD lost the seat to BJP by a narrow margin. The regional party had fielded retired chief engineer Nalini Kanta Pradhan while Nitesh Ganga Deb, scion of the Deogarh royal family, was the BJP candidate. Former MP and present president of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee Sarat Pattanayak had shifted from Bargarh to Sambalpur in the election, but fared a distant third.
The Congress has this time fielded Dulal Chandra Pradhan from the seat. A political greenhorn, Dulal has been the vice-president of Sambalpur District Athletics Association. Hailing from Rairakhol and settled in Sambalpur, he had never contested any election before his selection for this Lok Sabha seat, said a local leader.
