Bichitrananda Muduli

Ranendra Pratap Swain

Congress candidate Bichitrananda Muduli, a 71-year-old retired engineer, has a formidable task at hand. He faces a tough battle against five-time sitting MLA Ranendra Pratap Swain in this BJD bastion, which was once former chief minister J.B. Patnaik’s constituency.

The Congress, by fielding Muduli, has maintained its practice of changing candidates in all elections over the past two decades. There is a general impression among people here that this practice has adversely affected the Congress.

“Changing candidates has made it difficult for the Congress to win back the seat. New candidates have had a splintered organisational base of party workers before every election. And this sends the wrong signal to the voters,” said Mahesh Das, 52, of Athagarh town. Binayak Patri, 54, of Dhabaleswar agrees with him.

However, the Congress candidate said: “There is an undercurrent of anti-incumbency against the sitting BJD MLA. The focus of my campaign is ending the 24-year reign of this man. We will wrest the seat from the BJD this time as the people seem to be in favour of a change this time.”

“Party workers are enthused by the big crowds that are coming to the road shows being held by our Lok Sabha candidate Aparajita Mohanty. Her star power is expected to shore up the party’s vote share this time,” the Congress candidate said.

In 2009, Muduli had secured 43,371 votes as an Independent candidate while Congress candidate Subash Mohanty had ended a poor third with 7,376 votes. With the support of Ranendra Pratap Swain, who was debarred from contesting elections then, Independent candidate Ramesh Rout had won by securing 68,881 votes.

The 60-year-old firebrand BJD leader, better known as Raja Swain, believes his “with-the-people-in-all-seasons” image and “only-poll-time” opponents will be the decisive factors in the elections this time. “I expect the people to repose the same faith in me as in previous elections and vote for me to strengthen the hands of my party leader Naveen Patnaik in his battle for ‘swabhiman oh vikash’,” the BJD leader said.

The BJP has fielded Biswa Sundar Mishra, a first-timer. He feels his party is in a good position. “There is an undercurrent of anti-incumbency against the sitting BJD MLA. Riding on the Narendra Modi wave, we expect there will be a straight fight between the BJD and the BJP here this time,” said Mishra, a 60-year-old lawyer.

The BJP had ended a poor third in 2009 with 3,355 votes and in 2012 by-election, with 2,452. Dismissing the much-discussed Modi wave, Raja Swain said: “Can there be a storm in a tea cup? At least not in Athagarh!”

BJP candidate Mishra is incidentally the brother of Bibhuti Bhusan Mishra, a former Pradesh Congress Committee secretary, who had lost to Swain in 1995 and 2004. Senior Mishra is now with Pyari Mohan Mohapatra’s Odisha Jana Morcha. There are five candidates in the fray. The Aam Aadmi Party has fielded Bikash Chandra Panda and the Odisha Jana Morcha, Sankarshan Mohanty.

Swain has ruled Athagarh almost continuously since 1990. In 2000, he scored a hat trick win defeating J.B. Patnaik of the Congress. He notched his fifth consecutive win in March 2012 by-election, defeating Congress candidate Suresh Mohapatra by over 47,000 votes. The election was held after the Supreme Court cancelled the result of the 2009 election and ordered a fresh poll. Raja had moved the court seeking re-poll on grounds that he was illegally barred from contesting in 2009.