Berhampur: Berhampur Lok Sabha segment is likely to witness a triangular fight as the dates for the general elections draw near.
The BJP and the Congress plan to put up new faces while the BJD aims to score a hatrick in this year’s election. Even as the dates for the elections are not announced yet, hectic parleys have started in three parties. The Berhampur Lok Sabha segment comprises Chhatrapur, Berhampur, Gopalpur, Chikiti, Digapahandi Assembly seats in Ganjam district and Mohana and Paralakehmundi Assembly seats in Gajapati district.
The Lok Sabha segment had 13,16,448 voters in 2014 election while the voter strength this time around has increased to 14,68,447. A total of 1,51,989 new voters have been enlisted in the voters’ list who will probably decide the fate of the candidates in the upcoming election.
Chatters are abuzz that the BJP and the Congress might field new faces in this election. The Congress candidate in 2014 election and former Union minister Chandrasekhar Sahu as well as former deputy speaker and BJP candidate Ramachandra Panda have meanwhile joined the ruling Biju Janata Dal.
Sahu, after leaving the Congress, was appointed as state vice-president of BJD while Panda has been made a member of the State Planning Board having the status of a minister of state. The two leaving their respective parties have forced the two parties to search for new faces.
The ruling BJD plans to score a hatrick in the upcoming election. However, it is unclear whether the party leaders will field the incumbent MP Siddhant Mohapatra or put up a new face. Both Sahu and Panda are in the race for the party tickets.
Former speaker Chintamani Dyan Samantra has been lobbying for a Congress ticket along with Tirupati Panigrahi of Hi-tech group and former Gopalpur MLA Trinath Behera, who is also the district Congress president.
Notably, Berhampur parliamentary seat was a citadel of Congress in the past as from 1951-52 to 2014, 11 candidates of the Congress won the seat in 16 elections. In the first election, Communist party candidate Bijay Chandra Das became the MP and in the second election independent candidate Uma Charan Pattnaik won the election by contesting from the dual constituency of former Ganjam and Ghumusar seats.
BJP’s Anadi Sahu won the seat in alliance with BJD in 1999 elections. BJD’s Siddhant Mohapatra won twice in 2009 and 2014 elections. Ananta Tripathy Sharma and former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao has won from the seat once while Gopinath Gajapati twice, R Jagannath for five times from 1977 to 1984. Congress candidate Jayanti Patnaik won the seat in 1998 election while Chandra Sekhar Sahu in 2004 elections.
However, from 2009 BJD has been winning the seat what was once known as a Congress citadel. Attempt to contact the incumbent MP Siddhant Mohapatra on his phone (9437010234) for his response proved unsuccessful as he did not pick the phone.
PNN
