Sambalpur: Although the stage is all set for the first phase panchayat elections in Jujumara and Rairakhol blocks of Sambalpur, disgruntled party workers and rebels have been giving jitters to Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress as well in the region.
Meanwhile, almost all zilla parishad (ZP) seats in the two blocks under Rengali constituency will see fight between BJD and BJP.
There are five ZP zones in Rengali constituency. In the last panchayat elections, the BJP had made a clean sweep. However, this time the ruling party is quite optimistic of winning all the five ZP seats.
BJD heavyweights like Susanta Singh, Naba Kishore Das and others have widely campaigned for their party nominees.
On the other hand, Union Minister Biswheswar Tudu and several other state-level BJP leaders had campaigned for the party candidates.
However, many leaders and workers are unhappy about ticket distribution, assignment of work contracts and misunderstanding among cadres, it was said.
Grapevines have it that the organisation of BJP was in good stead before Nauri Nayak became the MLA.
The party has lost some ground now. The cadres of the BJP in Dhankauda, Rengali and Maneswar blocks have started lobbying for their candidates for ZP chairperson post much ahead of the elections.
The Rengali MLA, however, denied the reports about differences of opinions among the party workers. Similarly, the BJD is also a divided house in the assembly segment.
BJD’s secretary (Organisation) Pranab Prakash Das had campaigned for the party candidates and tried to iron out differences.
The BJD’s frontline leaders have been claiming that the party will bag all the five seats this time while the BJP is sanguine of repeating its previous performance.
BJD’s district unit president Sidharth Das said people have faith in Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his developmental agenda.
PNN
