Bhubaneswar: Amid unprecedented party-hopping, tweaking of candidates list by Congress, BJD and BJP has left several previously-declared nominees red-faced. Some were even replaced after they had started campaigning in their constituencies. This fuelled by poaching followed by nomination has caused resentment within the parties ahead of the twin polls in Odisha.
CONGRESS REPLACES 2 MP CANDIDATES
Dulal Chandra Pradhan and Mohan Hembram quit Congress after the party being replaced them in Sambalpur and Keonjhar Lok Sabha seats respectively.
On April 28, the Hand party cancelled the ticket given to Dulal and instead fielded former MP Nagendra Pradhan in Sambalpur. Pradhan, a former minister in the Naveen Patnaik government, won the Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat in 2014 on a BJD ticket. He joined the Congress after resigning from the regional party on April 25.
Hembram and his wife Jhuna Patnaik resigned from Congress on April 27 after the party withdrew his ticket. Though he had been lobbying for a MLA ticket from Telkoi, the party announced his candidature from Keonjhar Lok Sabha seat on April 14 only to replace him with Binod Bihari Nayak on April 20.
ASSEMBLY CANDIDATES COLD-SHOULDERED
Having felt humiliated after the withdrawal of his candidature from Talsara seat, former captain of Indian hockey team Prabodh Tirkey resigned from the Congress on April 20 and formally joined the BJP on April 28.
The grand old party replaced Tirkey with Debendra Bhitaria in the seat in Sundargarh district.
On April 17, the Congress dropped its candidate, Shreedhar Dev, from Digapahandi assembly segment a day after he filed his nomination, and fielded Saka Sujit Kumar in his place. The party also replaced candidates in Baliguda, Kabisuryanagar, Kantamal, and Jaydev before the start of filing of nomination.
The party changed candidates twice for Kabisuryanagar assembly seat. On April 2, Congress fielded Chiranjeevi Bisoyi from Kabisuryanagar and replaced him with Bipin Bihari Swain on April 14. It again nominated Sanjay Kumar Mandal in place of Swain on April 20. Similarly, Upendra Pradhan has replaced Surada Pradhan in Baliguda, Sarat Kumar Pradhan has taken the place of Manoj Kumar Acharya in Kantamal and Krushna Sagaria nominated in place of Jayant Kumar Bhoi in Jayadev.
On April 28, the Congress also made changes in two more assembly seats – Baripada and Khandapada. It nominated Pramod Hembram in place of Badal Hembram for Baripada seat and replaced Manoj Pradhan with Baijayantimala Mohanty in Khandapada.
TWO CHANGES IN BJP’s LIST
On April 15, the BJP made changes to two of the seats that were previously announced in their first list. The party decided to repose faith in former minister Surama Padhy after declaring Tapas Ranjan Martha as the MLA candidate from Ranpur. She unsuccessfully contested the last 3 elections after winning the seat in 2004. The party, however, saw a signifiant improvement in its vote share in 2019 election when she lost to BJD’s Satyanarayan Pradhan by a slender margin of 4,251 votes.
She was also a minister of state for cooperation from 2004 to 2009.
In Pottangi assembly constituency, BJP fielded Chaitanya Nandibali, replacing Chaitanya Hantal, following protests from the Adivasi Manch. The saffron party claimed that the change was made after “a scheduled caste (SC) candidate was erroneously named against a seat reserved for scheduled tribe (ST).”
BJD SWAPS CANDIDATES
Though the BJD has made no changes to its candidate lists so far, it swapped the MLA candidates of Sambalpur and Rairakhol on April 17. Former minister Prasanna Acharya will contest from Rairakhol and Rohit Pujari from Sambalpur. The swapping came amid reports that Prasanna Acharya was unhappy with the party’s decision to field him from Sambalpur and was instead keen to contest from Rairakhol from where he was elected in 2009. He had even meet Naveen on April 12 and requested him to reconsider the decision.
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