Battle Of Ex-bureaucrats: All Eyes On Arup, Aparajita

Bhubaneswar: It not often that you get to witness two former government officers engaged in a high-voltage electoral battle. However, Bhubaneswar parliamentary constituency has this time witnessed such a thing with ex-Mumbai police commissioner Arup Patnaik (BJD) crossing swords with BJP’s Aparajita Sarangi, who took voluntary retirement from IAS to take the political plunge.

Elections 2019 in the high-profile Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha constituency has been many ways been different from what it has been during the past few decades. It not just the fight between a retired IPS officer versus a former IAS officer that has dominated the poll narrative but the keen contest between the BJD and the BJP that has left everyone guessing on who would win the April 23 elections. Senior CPM leader Janardhan Pati is the other significant contender, among the 14 candidates, in the fray; he is contesting the elections following an electoral alliance between the Left party and the Congress.

It would be a month-long wait to know if Arup could retain the BJD stronghold or Aparajita could upset the regional party’s applecart. Whatever the outcome, Bhubaneswar, for the maiden occasion since the first general elections in 1952, is likely to have a former bureaucrat as its representative in the Lower House, bringing to the fore the babudom’s increasing dalliance with politics. In the 16 LS elections so far, the Congress has won on eight occasions, followed by BJD five times and the CPM thrice.

While Arup is banking solely on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s popularity and BJD’s strong organisational apparatus to pull him through, Aparajita is attempting to ride the perceptible Modi wave. She has been working hard to woo the electorate for the past five months since taking retirement from service and managed to create a support base.

The BJD, in turn, dropped five-time Bhubaneswar MP Prasanna Patasani and announced Arup’s candidature at the eleventh hour, leaving him with little time to cover all nook and cranny in the constituency. While Aparajita, who was municipal commissioner, Bhubaneswar, over a decade ago, has been trying her best to reach out to the masses, Arup has been smart to focus on his party’s bastions. Which of the two ex-bureaucrats will reap the dividends in Bhubaneswar, which comprises Bhubaneswar (North), Bhubaneswar (Central), Ekamra-Bhubaneswar, Jayadev, Jatni, Khurda and Begunia, will be known on May 23.

In the assembly elections, except Jatni, where Congress’ Suresh Routray is giving the BJD and the BJP candidates a tough challenge, in the rest of the constituencies it is expected to be a contest between the saffron party versus the Conch party.