Bhubaneshwar: The supporters of veteran Congress leader Suresh Routray were left puzzled when they first saw their six-time MLA campaigning for his son Manmath Routray, who is contesting on Biju Janata Dal’s ticket from the Bhubaneswar Lok Sabha seat.
“On 25th May, remember ‘double shankha’ (the election symbol of BJD) and cast your vote for it,” the Congress veteran told a political sabha in Bhubaneswar.
The Routrays are not alone in Odisha. Three political families are facing internal strife, as a result of which brothers are competing against each other, a father getting expelled while another is not campaigning for his sons.
As everything comes with a cost, the senior Routray was expelled from the party for six years for “indiscipline” and “anti-party” activities in April as he campaigned for his son. This was a month after he had resigned from all committees of the Congress after his younger son Manmath Routray joined the ruling BJD. The Congress has fielded Yashir Nawaz for Bhubaneswar.
The irony doesn’t end there as the 80-year-old Jatni MLA’s elder son Sidharth is running for an MLA seat in Nimapara on a Congress ticket. But Sidharth has chosen not to seek his father’s support.
Manmath Routray is clear about keeping relationships and political leanings separate.
“Family is a different thing, and leadership and ideology is a different thing. Every family member cannot have the same ideology. The Constitution gives you the right to choose your ideology. But family relations stay inside,” the BJD candidate says.
For Sidharth, the elder brother, the election has come with a price: he hasn’t spoken to his younger brother Manmath since the last election.:
“Things changed in the family in the last election when I helped my father in the election campaign and managed everything. But when my father won last time my brother got interested in power. We have not spoken in the last five years,” says Sidharth.
“My father has gone insane. I was shocked to see him promoting my brother. When he got to know that I was going to contest on a Congress ticket, my father told me to go back to the US.” Manmath blames the Congress for being narrow-minded and for its inability to adopt modernity.
“Congress’s problem is that they do not adopt modern things. My father had announced earlier that my ideology is different and he had only told people in the close circle to vote for me,” he adds.
Sidharth alleges that his father wants power and that he will get through to his brother because he is contesting for the MP seat.
“My father became greedy for power. That’s why he chose to go all for my brother,” he says
“But he has made a terrible choice. He is going all for my brother. He went a little too further while campaigning for my brother. He said that “Joda Shankha” thing and he tried to shift all the Congress workers towards BJD.”
“I have asked my father not to campaign for me. He told me to go back to the US and not to run in the election. They (his father-brother) have made deals with BJD,” said Siddharth Routray.
Nonetheless, the patriarch of the family claims to be a Congressman even though he was expelled from the party. “Yes, I have told people to vote for my son because they ask me what to do. If AICC or the PCC wants to punish me, I will accept it. But I will be a Congressman till my death,” he says.
Odisha is going to polls for 21 Lok Sabha seats and 147 assembly seats from 13 May. Voting will be conducted across four phases.
Also Read: Booming Bhubaneswar is star of Odisha’s growth story, even as BJD & BJP vie for credit
Ganjam
Another such case is from Ganjam in Chikti assembly constituency, where brothers Manoranjan and Ravindanath Dyan Samantaray are pitted against each other. Manoranjan, the younger, is the BJP candidate, while Ravindanath Dyan Samantaray is backed by the Congress.
Their father and veteran Congress leader Chintamani Dyan Samantray, 84, in turn, hasn’t campaigned for either of his sons.
Manoranjan had contested on a Congress ticket in 2014 and later as a BJP candidate five years on, but couldn’t succeed in both assembly elections. On the other hand, Ravindranath is contesting for the first time.
If the meetings of the two brothers were restricted barring festive occasions like Holi and Diwali in the past, their political allegiances have now ended whatever ties they had due to the elections. The siblings were already living in separate houses.
“We meet at festivals, all the politics is outside. Women of the house speak to each other on occasions. My father lives with me but my brother lives separately with his family,” Manoranjan says, and adds that this is not “abnormal” and that everyone follows a certain ideology.
“All of this is normal in politics. We have many examples like that. My family had supported me in the last two elections. People on the ground don’t care about all of this. They see the candidates and their capability.”
“I got my father’s blessings when I joined the BJP and when I filled my nomination,” he adds.
On the other hand, Ravindanath gives examples from the Congress party to justify his action of fighting against his younger sibling.
“Families are not separate from politics. Every family has their politics. Me and my brother do not talk but that doesn’t make any difference on the ground. People don’t ask me about this. We talk about the developments and political issues,” he says.
“Rahul and Varun Gandhi are cousins but they are in different parties and speak against each other’s party too, so that is not a new or different thing.”
Kendrapara
In Kendrapara, BJP’s Bijoy Mohapatra has no qualms about campaigning for his son Arabinda, the BJD candidate from Patkura assembly segment, even though he had an fell out with the party president and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Mohapatra, who is considered to be a rival of Patnaik, has openly campaigned for his son who joined the BJD in March.
Like Congress leader Suresh Routray, Mohapatra, too, faces danger of irking his colleagues in the BJP.
“I have informed BJP state president Manmohan Samal about the activities of Bijoy Mohapatra. The party will soon take proper action against him,” Kishor Panda, president of the Kendrapara district unit of BJP, tells ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)