BHUBANESWAR : Trouble mounted for BJP in Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency after its leader and former Khurda Assembly candidate Kalu Charan Khandayatray on Sunday openly revolted and announced to contest as an Independent after the party fielded Chilika MLA and former BJD leader Prasanta Jagadev from the seat.
Khandayatray targeted the party’s Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha candidate Aparajita Sarangi and vowed to put up a strong fight to defeat her. “I will not tolerate the injustice meted out to me despite my decade-long efforts to strengthen party’s organisation in Khurda. I will not join any other party but will fight the elections from the seat as an Independent,” Khandayatray told The New Indian Express.
The BJP leader, who had organised a Swabhiman Samabesh in the Assembly segment on Saturday to show off his strength after the party gave ticket to Jagadev, blamed Sarangi for exclusion of his name from the list of Assembly candidates announced by the outfit.
He alleged Sarangi took around `2 crore from Jagadev to recommend his name to the party leadership for the Khurda ticket. “She had asked me to pay `2 crore. However, after I denied to pay the money, she took it from Jagadev and gave him the ticket,” Khandayatray alleged.
He claimed it was because of him that Sarangi got around 95,000 votes from Khurda region in the 2019 elections. His supporters claimed Khandayatray took the decision to contest as an Independent in Khurda after the party leadership repeatedly ignored his requests.
Prior to announcement of ticket, his supporters had gheraoed party’s state headquarters here thrice. Khandyatray’s revolt, meanwhile, is likely to cause more trouble for the saffron party in the Assembly seat as well as Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency, as in 2019 he had secured over 75,000 votes (43 per cent of total votes polled) and lost to BJD’s candidate by a thin margin.
His entry into the electoral fray as an Independent may also benefit BJD that has fielded Rajendra Sahu from the Assembly seat and Manmath Routray from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat. Congress, on the other hand, has fielded Sonali Sahoo from the Assembly seat and Yasir Nawaz from Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat.
The Sarangi’s camp, however, termed the allegations of Khandayatray as false and baseless and said that impact of Independents will be negligible on the prospects of BJP in both Assembly and Lok Sabha seats.