Set to the tune of a catchy Bollywood number, the BJP’s theme song in this Lok Sabha seat is “Sun bhai sun, Modi ki dhun, Hindustan ko bachana hai to Modi ko chun (O brother! Listen to Modi’s tune, elect him if you want to save India)”.
The party is extremely hopeful of the lotus blooming here.
“People want change and Modiji represents that change. This is going to be a vote for him,” said Jawahar Ekka, waving the BJP flag at Panposh Chowk. The party candidate, former Union minister Jual Oram, sweating it out under the blazing sun, too, is seeking votes in the name of Modi. “It is going to be a massive mandate in favour of Modiji. The trend is becoming increasingly clear,” he gushed, looking confident.
Oram is pitted against formidable opponents — former Hockey India captain Dilip Tirkey and outgoing Congress MP and former chief minister Hemanand Biswal. But, he has already made his calculations. Last time when the sizeable chunk of minority (Christian) votes in the constituency went almost entirely to Biswal, he lost to the Congress by less than 12,000 votes.
The situation has changed completely with the Christian voters divided between Biswal and Tirkey, who belongs to the community.
“For us, it is a win-win situation. Howsoever hard the Congress and BJD may try, they cannot stop us this time,” said Babula Mishra, another BJP worker at Kanshbahal.
The Congress and the BJD, however, are far ahead of the BJP in terms of posters and banners, which are ubiquitous throughout the constituency.
Huge billboards on the road from Kanshbahal to Rourkela highlight two major schemes sponsored by the ruling party — Mamta for pregnant mothers and 108 ambulance for the sick. The slogan for each is couched in catchy language — “Maa pain Mamta, au nahin chinta (With Mamta for mothers there are no more worries)” and “mangana 108 ambulance seva, devduta bhali Navin ubha (Naveen has arrived like a saving angel with the free 108 ambulance service)”.
On the face of it, the Congress, which holds three of the seven Assembly seats in the constituency, should find itself in a stronger position than it seems to be at the moment. But rampant infighting in most of the Assembly segments, including Sundargarh, Talsara and Rajgangpur, where it has its MLAs, has been the bane of the party. Biswal himself had given a glimpse of the growing resentment within the party rank and file when in the immediate wake of announcement candidates for the Assembly seats he criticised the state leadership for indulging in arbitrary selection.
In the Talsara Assembly segment, it is a triangular contest between outgoing Congress MLA Prafulla Manjhi, BJD’s Binaya Toppo and BJP’s Santosh Kumar Amat with the BJD likely to gain most from the Congress infighting. The situation is more or less similar in the neighbouring Sundargarh constituency, where Congress’s Jogesh Kumar Singh is pitted against BJD’s Kusum Tete and BJP’s Sahadev Xaxa with the latter gaining ground.
In Bonei, BJP turncoat Bhimsen Choudhary, a former disciple of Jual Oram, is contesting on the Congress ticket, but the renegade image seems to have spoiled his chances. Considering that his BJP opponent, Luthar Oram, is comparatively inexperienced, the real gainer may be BJD’s Dayanidhi Kisan.
In Rajgangpur, Congress candidate, former hockey player Gregory Minz is trying to hold on to the seat fending off a formidable challenge form of former minister Mangala Kisan of the BJD and Upendra Pradhan of BJP. The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha candidate, Dhaneswar Xalxo, is also a factor on this seat.
The battle in Birmitrapur is one of prestige for Samata Kranti Dal president George Tirkey, who won this seat last time as an Independent. More than Rajesh Kerketta of the Congress and Sebeyan Aind of the JMM, he faces a tough challenge from BJP’s Shankar Oram. The BJD candidate, Magdali Kongadi, is a bit of a non-entity.
While in Rourkela, it is almost a straight contest between BJP’s Dilip Ray and BJD’s Sarada Nayak, minister of state for transport Subrat Tarei finds himself locked in a triangular battle in neighbouring Raghunathpalli with the Congress and the BJP.
