KENDRAPARA: The Kendrapara Assembly constituency is witnessing an interesting battle among three turncoats who switched sides recently to enter the poll arena.
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has fielded former Congress MLA and ex-minister Ganeswar Behera who till last month was in the grand old party. The Congress similarly has placed its faith in Sipra Mallick, a former MLA who recently quit BJD after Ganeswar joined the ruling party. The BJP too has fielded Zilla Parishad chairperson Gitanjali Sethi who resigned from BJD last week.
The contest between Sipra and Ganeswar is a battle of old rivals. In 2014, Sipra as a BJD candidate defeated Congress’ Ganeswar from Kendrapara Assembly seat. In 1995, Ganeswar had fought the election as a Congress candidate and defeated Sipra of the Janata Dal from Pattamundai seat.
Niranjan Das, a retired school teacher of Kendrapara, said the three candidates switched sides after deserting their parent parties. This has led to discontentment among workers of all the three major political parties - the Congress, BJD and BJP.
In BJP, a section of workers are reportedly unhappy after the saffron party nominated Gitanjali as its candidate from the SC-reserved seat. BJP insiders said though many senior party leaders like Kalpana Mallick and Abhimanyu Gochhayat were in the ticket race, the BJP leadership ignored them and fielded a parachute leader. The surprise move has left many party workers at the grassroots level dejected.
However, Gitanjali claimed people are determined to vote for BJP in the upcoming election. “Earlier, Kendrapara was not connected with rail. The BJP government at the Centre connected the coastal district with railway lines. Nowadays, both passenger and goods trains are running in the district. I am confident that the BJP will emerge victorious in Kendrapara seat,” she added.
President of the district unit of BJD Dhiren Sahoo said Ganeswar is a senior leader. BJD roped him with an intention to win the Assembly seat easily. “Some BJD leaders were opposing his candidature. But we pacified them at a party meeting held on Wednesday. Now all BJD leaders and supporters are working unitedly to ensure Ganeswar’s victory,” he said.
Sipra claimed the BJD is a divided house in Kendrapara after it decided to field Ganeswar from the seat. People are disenchanted with both BJD and BJP. This time, they will vote for the Congress, she added.
In 2019 elections, the BJD had won all the six Assembly seats in the district.
