Sajanagad: With the Election Commission of India announcing the schedule for the State Assembly and Parliamentary elections, speculation is rife over party nominations for Nilagiri Assembly seat in Balasore district.
All eyes are on BJD candidate for the seat, given the ruling party’s stand for 33 per cent reservation for women.
In this context, the name of former BJP women’s leader Sushma Rani Biswal is being mentioned. She switched over to the ruling Biju Janata Dal Monday. Sushma was the vice-president of BJP’s Mahila Morcha and had held different posts when she was in the party. She came second when she contested the Nilagiri Assembly seat in 2014 elections.
In the past, she established herself as a leader by highlighting the Pipli gangrape case, Ujjwala cooking gas scheme of the Centre and various people-oriented schemes of the Modi government. She had worked for BJP in Nilagiri in cooperation with party leader and former MLA Pratap Chandra Sarangi.
However, apprehending that she might not get BJP ticket for the 2019 elections, she defected to the ruling party. Banking on her past performance in BJP, she is now staking claim to the BJD ticket for the Nilagiri seat.
However, observers fear that she might create problems for the ruling party as the incumbent MLA Sukanta Nayak, who is also an aspirant for the party ticket, has done a lot for the area. He is also popular among the people.
Observers claim that Nilagiri voters, historically, are not swayed by political considerations but exercise their choice in electing their representative.
In the first Assembly election for the Nilagiri seat, the voters had elected Communist Party candidate Banamali Das even though then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited the place and campaigned for Congress candidate Balaram Raj.
Similarly, former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik had campaigned for Pradipta Panda, the candidate of Janata Dal and CPI (M) coalition, but the voters chose to elect Chittaranjan Sarangi as their MLA.
In yet another case, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Lal Krishna Advani and Shatrughan Sinha had campaigned for BJD-BJP coalition candidate Shyamananda Mohapatra but the voters elected Pradipta Panda to the State Assembly.
Observers feel that any wrong in selection of candidate might cost the ruling party the seat.
PNN