New Delhi: There is a running joke in Kendrapara that this time around, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was fighting two elections — one in Odisha and the other in the coastal constituency of Kendrapara.
For Patnaik, ensuring his Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won Kendrapara was a matter of prestige as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had fielded his bete noire, Baijayant Panda, from the seat. Panda had fallen out with Patnaik and resigned from the BJD last year. The chief minister, on his part, had accused Panda of spreading rumours about his health.
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Going by the Election Commission of India’s trends at 5:15 pm, it seems Patnaik may have his way, because Panda is trailing BJD’s actor-turned-politician Anubhav Mohanty by 54,980 votes.
Panda had an uphill task
Despite the growing buzz for Panda and strong undercurrent for the BJP on the ground, political analysts said it was an uphill task for the BJP candidate to wrest Kendrapara from the BJD.
The BJD has not lost the Kendrapara seat since 1998. Former Odisha chief minister and Naveen Patnaik’s father, Biju Patnaik, won the seat three times — 1977, 1980 and 1984.
In 2014, Panda, fighting on a BJD ticket, got six lakh votes against the Congress’ Dharanidhar Nayak, who came second with 3.9 lakh votes. The BJP had finished a distant third with 1.18 lakh votes.
“Though Panda, a two-time MP from Kendrapara, is a known name there, the fact remains that he won with a huge margin in 2014 on a BJD ticket. Apart from his own popularity, he also got votes in Naveen Patnaik’s name,” said Prof. R.K. Satapathy, who teaches political science at the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, and tracks Odisha politics very closely.
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