Can Renegade Arjun Sethi Spoil BJD Applecart In Bhadrak?

Bhubaneswar: Will the turncoat spell doom for BJD, which dominated Bhadrak parliamentary constituency in Odisha for two decades now. The regional party lost the tallest leader of Bhadrak, Arjun Sethi, who quit the party ahead of the 2019 elections and joined the BJP with his son Abhimanyu Sethi on March 30.

The eight-time MP embraced the saffron party after BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik nominated newbie Manjulata Mandal, a housewife and spouse of outgoing Dhamnagar MLA Muktikanta Mandal, for Bhadrak, ignoring the veteran’s request to field his son Abhimanyu in his place.

The 78-year-old, who won the seat for the regional party in five consecutive elections since 1998, commands considerable influence in this parliamentary constituency and can tilt the scales in favour of BJP, which has fielded his son from the seat.

He has been appealing to the voters to give him a last chance by voting for his son.

In 2014 elections, Sethi had won the seat by around 1.80 lakh votes.

Also in the fray is Congress’ Madhumita Sethi, daughter of Congress veteran and former Bhadrak MP Ananta Sethi.

Ananta is also the Congress nominee for Simulia assembly segment falling under this parliamentary constituency and canvassing for his daughter too.

The assembly segments under Bhadrak are: Soro, Simulia, Bhandaripokhari, Bhadrak, Basudevpur, Dhamnagar and Chandabali. The BJD had won all these seats in 2014 elections.

Soro- Parshuram Dhada (BJD), Simulia – Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi (BJD), Bhandaripokhari – Prafulla Samal (BJD), Bhadrak – Jugal Kishore Pattnaik (BJD),  Basudevpur – Bijayshree Routray (BJD), Dhamnagar -Muktikanta Mandal (BJD), Chandabali – Byomkesh Ray (BJD).

The ruling party has repeated Parshuram Dhada, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Prafulla Samal and Byomkesh Ray from their respective seats this election. The outgoing MLAs of Bhadrak, Basudevpur and Dhamnagar have been replaced by Sanjib Mallick (son of former MLA late Hrudananda Mallick), Bishnubrata Routray and Rajendra Kumar Das respectively.

Bhandaripokhari assembly segment is witnessing a fierce fight between state Congress president Niranjan Patnaik and senior BJD leader and MSME minister Samal.

In Chandbali assembly segment, BJD’s outgoing MLA Byomkesh Ray is up against senior BJP leader and former minister Manmohan Samal.

The region also witnessed intense campaigning by the BJD president and BJP ministers Nitin Gadkari, Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram. Senior Congress leader and popular Bollywood actor Raj Babbar also visited Bhadrak to campaign for party candidates.