Balasore: The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is leaving no stone unturned to bag all the five zilla parishad (ZP) zones under Balasore Sadar block. As per sources, elections will be held in 37 panchayats under five ZP zones in this block February 24.
Altogether 1, 46, 428 voters will decide the fate of the candidates for 37 sarpanch posts and five ZP seats. The BJP is pulling out all the stops to regain its influence it had lost in the byelection to the Sadar Assembly seat.
Wining all the ZP seats and maximum number of sparpanch seats is now a challenge for the newly-elected BJD MLA Swarup Das. It is said that ZP zone-29 will see a tough fight between BJD’s Narayan Pradhan and BJP’s Bijay Kumar Nayak.
Congress has fielded Gayaprasad Das for this seat. Similarly, BJD’s Sanjay Das, BJP’s Gayadahr Behera and Congress’ Krushna Das are contesting in zone-25.
In zone-26, BJD has fielded Sonali Biswal; the BJP Jhunulata Swain and Congress Rinki Rout. Those fighting for ZP zone-27 are: BJD’s Banalata Sethi, BJP’s Archana Samal and Congress’ Renubala Ghadei.
In zone-28, BJD has fielded Sanjay Kumar Sethi; the BJP Sanotsh Sethi and the Congress Karunakar Jena. Given the weak organisation of the Congress in all the ZP zones, battle lines are now drawn between the BJD and the BJP, political observers said.
While the ruling party leaders and workers have been highlighting various welfare measures and Mission Shakti programme of the state government, the BJP has been trying to woo the voters by highlighting Central schemes of the NDA government.
In 2017 panchayat elections, four ZP seats, except zone-28 had gone to the BJP’s kitty. With this, the BJP bolstered its base which handed out win to party’s Madanmohan Dutta in 2019 Assembly elections from Balasore Sadar.
After the death of Dutta, the BJD grabbed the Sadar Assembly in 2020 byelection.
Prior to the Assembly bypoll in the Sadar seat, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had announced to take care of the Assembly constituency and later crores of rupees were pumped in for various developmental programmes in the area.
Since then, MLA Das has been making all-out efforts to keep the voters in good humour so that his ZP candidates win the poll to maintain his clout which is essential for the 2024 general elections.
However, BJP sounds confident of winning all the five ZP seats under the Sadar block riding on the wave of reported discontent in BJD.
PNN
