Saintala (Bolangir), April 13: The sun was setting on Bolangir when an air-conditioned Qualis rolled into the dust-bowl of Kumbhari village in the Saintala Assembly constituency.

A young man, in brick-red kurta and white pyjamas, stepped off the car amid the cacophony of village urchins.

Had it not been for his father A.U. Singh Deo, Kalikesh would have been jet-setting in and around South Asia, the US or Panama as part of his job at Enron, the multinational energy conglomerate, far away from the energy-sapping heat of Saintala.

As the 30-year-old scion of the Singh Deo royal family entered Kumbhari, a village of marginal farmers in the interiors of Saintala last week, people lined up before him, their hearts throbbing with the expectations of subjects before a king.

Kalikesh picked up the microphone and addressed a gaggle of villagers and children in Oriya near the village temple. “Ascharjya. Ati ascharjya (It’s amazing),” he said, wondering in at the lack of development in the constituency that has returned Congress candidates for the last 10 years.

But nobody dared to tell him that it was the royal family of Bolangir that should take most of the blame.

“There is no electricity here. No roads in your constituency, though you have been choosing the Congress for the last 10 years,” he told the villagers while throwing a garland of jasmine on a child. There were few claps for the economics graduate from St Stephens.

It might seem ironical that an alumnus of Doon School and St Stephens is aspiring to represent one of the most backward areas of the country. But Kalikesh has a ready answer. “They said the same thing about Rajiv (Gandhi), Naveen Patnaik and my father,” he said.

As Kalikesh, the second son of Singh Deo, a senior Biju Janata Dal minister, went around Saintala — known for its ordnance factory — with folded hands, he had little else to fall back on than his family.

Though BJD leaders Jagneswar Babu and Balakrushna Rath were ticket aspirants, Singh Deo did enough backroom manoeuvring to get the Saintala seat for his son.

But several are yet to be convinced about the former Enron employee.

“He is just another royal out to have a good time,” scoffed Rajat Pattanayak, younger brother of former state Congress president and nominee for the Bolangir seat, Sarat Pattanayak.

Singh Deo distributed a New Year calendar in Saintala that showcased the clan — his father and former chief minister R.. Singh Deo, sons Kalikesh, Manmath Vijay and Arkesh Narayan.

But for all his father’s efforts, Kalikesh is battling the outsider tag. “We know that once he is elected he would shuttle between Bhubaneswar and his palace in Bolangir like other royals. After all, he is an outsider.”