Jharsuguda: With campaign for byelection to Brajrajnagar Assembly constituency in Odisha’s Jharsuguda district coming to an end on Sunday, several star campaigners of ruling BJD and opposition BJP and Congress gave a miss to it.
All the three major parties had released their list of 40 star campaigners to participate in the campaigning for their respective candidates.
BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who led the list of the ruling party, has not turned up for the campaign for its candidate Alaka Mohanty, the wife of deceased MLA Kishore Mohanty. The bypoll was necessitated due to death of Kishore Mohanty on December 30 last year.
However, Dipali Das, daughter of veteran party leader Naba Das, organised several meetings of women to seek votes in favour of Kishore Mohanty on the last day.
For Congress, several star campaigners including Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and youth leader Kanhaiya Kumar failed to appear during the campaign. But state leaders of Congress turned up in good strength to canvass for party candidate Kishore Chandra Patel.
Odisha in-charge of Congress Chellakumar and OPCC president Sarat Patnaik, former OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik and senior leaders Suresh Routray, Tara Patnaik and Narasingha Mishra were found campaigning for Patel in rallies and meetings.
For BJP, no Central minister except Dharmendra Pradhan participated in the campaign for party candidate Radharani Panda, who represented the constituency from 2014 to 2019. The saffron party had announced the names of 5 Union Ministers including Piyush Goel, Dharmendra Pradhan, Pralhad Joshi, Aswini Viashnaw and Biseswar Tudu to camapaign in the byeelection.
Meanwhile, all the parties have focused on Lakhanpur block of the district which have 33 panchayats comprising more than 50% of total voters in the Assembly constituency. The campaigners of all the parties mobilised their strength to woo the voters of Lakhanpur pointing out each other’s weaknesses during the campaign.
A total of 2,14,261 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the bypoll which is scheduled to be held from 7 am to 6 pm on May 31. The counting of votes will take place on June 3.
