Pinaki Misra

Sucharita Mohanty

Ashok Sahu

A triangular electoral battle is going to take place in Puri when it goes to polls on April 17.

The Congress has pitted 51-year-old journalist Sucharita Mohanty, daughter of party leader the late Braja Mohan Mohanty, against sitting BJD MP Pinaki Misra, a Supreme Court lawyer.

Pinaki, the richest Lok Sabha candidate in the state with assets worth Rs 137 crore, too, is the son of veteran Congress leader and former Assam governor late Lokanath Misra. He had earlier represented the Puri Lok Sabha in 1996 as a Congress candidate, and in 2009, he joined the BJD and won the seat.

Though there are seven candidates in the fray, the contest is expected to be a triangular one with BJP’s Ashok Sahu, a former IPS officer, having thrown his hat into the ring. Sahu took voluntary retirement in 1997 and joined politics. In 2009, he had unsuccessfully contested for the Kandhamal Lok Sabha seat.

With a promise to change the face of the pilgrim city, Sucharita is banking on her family’s political legacy. Her father had represented Puri in the Assembly as well as in the Lok Sabha. A former Union minister in the Indira Gandhi government, he was a minister in the state and also its Assembly Speaker from 1974 to 1977.

Sucharita, the youngest progeny among the seven children of Mohanty, was a journalist before taking the plunge into politics. “My father spent his whole life working and dreaming for the revival of Puri, his homeland. I will make this dream a reality,” she said.

Stating that honesty and integrity are her strength, she said: “I am serious about politics. I am not quitting the fight till I represent the Puri in Lok Sabha. I want the voice of Puri be properly heard in the Parliament. The only problem I am facing at this moment is that I am not finding enough time to reach out to each nook and corner of my constituency,” she said.

Citing the legacy of her father, Sucharita exhorts people to vote for her. “I want development of Puri and not seeking power for myself.” Net savvy, she has been communicating with her voters in the cyberspace. She has also prepared a vision document on how to make Puri a modern and developed city by 2020.

The Mohanty family has been outside the political arena for nearly three decades. She is being considered as an “outsider” not only by the people of the constituency, but also by local Congress workers and leaders. “She has failed to maintain contact with the people. Now her call to vote for “a daughter” does not strike the chord. The Congress in the district has already become a divided house after she was given the ticket at the last minute by the party high command,” said one of the party leaders.

For the Congress, to storm the BJD bastion would be a Herculean task. Of the seven Assembly constituencies constituting the Lok Sabha seat, the BJD holds six — Puri, Brahmagiri, Pipili (all in Puri district), Chilika (Khurda), Ranpur and Nayagarh (Nayagarh district). The Satyabadi seat is the only constituency represented by Congress stalwart Prasad Harichandan.

At present, the BJD appears to be more comfortable in all the Assembly segments barring Brahmagiri where its youth wing president Sanjay Dasburma is facing a stiff challenge from his rival Congress stalwart Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra. “The fight in Brahmagiri is the toughest as the Congress has fielded its former youth Congress president from here,” said Dasburma.

In Puri Assembly constituency, four-time MLA Maheswar Mohanty, who is recuperating fast after an unsuccessful attack on his life, is banking on sympathy factor. He has carefully nurtured nearly 35,000 slum dwellers in the city and is said to have considerable influence on them. Bed-ridden Maheswar has started his campaign from home through videoconferencing. Huge screens have come up in the city at vantage points to air his appeal.

In Nayagarh constituency, the Congress is in a bad shape after its stalwart, Hemendra Chandra Singh, joined the BJD and became its nominee for the Kandhamal Lok Sabha seat. It would be a difficult task for Sucharita to gather votes for her in this constituency. Other three Assembly constituencies are the BJD’s stronghold. Similarly, it is hopeful to retain its existing seat Ranpur and Chilika.

Pinaki is banking heavily on the popularity of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, his party’s poll mascot. “The BJD will win both the Lok Sabha as well the Assembly seats given Naveen’s popular image and development of the state,” he said.

On the other hand, Ashok Sahu, who nurtured the Kandhamal seat carefully for a decade but later was shifted to Puri, is finding it hard to ramp up his campaign. Sahu said: “Anti-incumbency factor is working heavily against Pinaki Misra. The Congress has fielded a weak candidate. People want an alternative this time. Modi wave and my reputation as a police officer will certainly help me.”