Khandapara: With Phase-I and Phase-II of simultaneous Assembly and Parliament elections over, candidates facing the electorate in Phase-III April 23 are fully geared up.
The candidates in Khandapara Assembly seat in Nayagarh district are beating the scorching heat to reach various villages to woo the voters. This time, Khandapara is all set to witness a major clash between two old contestants.
BJD Rajya Sabha member Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, who has been well acquainted with this constituency for the last two decades, is challenging former BJD MLA Siddharth Shekhar Singh who is this time contesting on a BJP ticket.
While the Congress has fielded Basant Kumar Maharana, Dusmant Kumar Swain is contesting as an Independent.
While the ruling BJD and BJP campaigned at a feverish pitch, Congress and the Independent candidate have fallen back. It’s worth noting that Soumya, who had contested on Ama Odisha Party ticket in 2014, lost the seat by a slender margin of 601 votes to the then BJD candidate Anubhav Patnaik.
This time, BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has chosen Soumya as the party candidate from Khandapara in place of the sitting MLA Anubhav Patnaik. Anubhav, who was the proposer of Soumya Ranjan, has been actively campaigning for him. Soumya is being helped by Anubhav to attract the voters after he joined BJD.
“I had chosen Khandapara as my workplace ever since I became Bhubaneswar MP in 1996. But unfortunately, people of Khandapara have not chosen me as their representative though I fought 2009 and 2014 Assembly elections. I hope this time people will give me the opportunity to serve them,” said Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.
Interestingly, former BJD MLA Siddharth Sekhar Singh, who had defeated Soumya Ranjan in 2009, is contesting on BJP ticket this time.
The presence of Congress nominee Basant Maharana, a new face, was not felt in the entire constituency whereas the influence of Independent Dusmanta Swain was found restricted to a limited area.
PNN
