Patkura: With political pundits still bewildering over the outcome of the high-stake Patkura Assembly elections, the Assembly poll has become a flashpoint in the state.
With the top echelons of the state leadership of BJP and BJD thronging the assembly segment to impress upon the electorate, the Assembly segment has become a talk of the town. However, non-fulfillment of 2014 poll promises by the ruling party hounds the prospects of the BJD.
Several kuccha houses lurking behind bushes alongside the road to Patkura are living reminders to the ruling party’s failure to fulfill its promises, many voters from the area claimed. “The Chief Minister and the BJD in their 2014 poll manifesto had claimed to make all kuccha houses in the state into pucca. But what happened to those promises? How can we believe on their new promises if the party failed on its previous ones,” said Deb Prasad Mishra, a resident of Bedari village in Patkura Panchayat.
Similar woes were also expressed by other villagers of the area. Bharati Mishra, an elder widow from the village, said that after seven decades of Independence she is still living in a kuccha house. “I have a voter card, an Aadhaar card and all other official documents but I still have to live in a kuccha house that too without electricity connection. Development has shunned us. Despite that we keep on voting for BJD with the hope of a change someday,”
Besides the issue of kuccha houses in their locality, many residents of Patkura also complained of unsafe and polluted water discharged from hand pumps in their areas.
However, with the elections round the corner, residents are seeing some camaflouage development. Some roads leading to Patkura Assembly segment near Jamunabandha and other areas have been repaired at the eleventh hour to cover bad roads leading to the area. The remnants of freshly-repaired road are still evident.
“The roads were repaired just three days back just before the elections. Earlier, the road was in bad shape,” said Ranjit Nayak, a resident of Jamunabandha village in Patkura.
Beyond the issue of development, promises and others, the battle for Patkura seat has gained impetus which is evident on the roads with power-packed campaigns in the area. Groups of youths from the BJD were seen Wednesday roaming around on bullets, tailor-made cars while mobile vans of the BJP toured rural areas to attract the attention of voters.
The Patkura hamlet was also seen covered rampantly with BJD and BJP posters. The Congress has become an underdog here with a majority of campaigns, flags and posters being dominated by the regional party and the saffron party.
Veterans from Patkura claim that many loyal voters from the Congress have shifted their base to BJP owing to their aggressive campaigns. However, in terms of magnitude of campaigning, the BJD seems to have outperformed the BJP in this area. With the massive attention of the BJD leaders, ministers and MLAs on Patkura, many of whom love to converge there by bunking Assembly session, the triumph of BJP’s Bijoy Mohapatra seems a Herculean task.
PNN
