Naveen set to win as Cong turns tail

The Congress has not even fielded a candidate here as no one in the party agreed to take on Naveen Patnaik, who despite his admitted failure to learn Oriya intwo-and-a-half years and an unimpressive stint as Union minister has gone on to consolidate his position, thanks to the pro-Vajpayee mood in the state. So the Congress has extended support to the CPI candidate. The CPI had helped Biju Patnaik during the 1996 polls and supported Naveen when he contested on the JD ticket in the 1997 by-election.

So confident is the BJD about Patnaik winning that it has not opened its election office in any of the seven Assembly segments. The BJD workers are bothered only about one thing: how to better Patnaik’s victory margin of 86,211 votes in 1998. Yet, Patnaik, a contrast to his father, is touring the constituency extensively.

Patnaik had defeated Chandra Sekhar Sahu of the Congress last time in a three-cornered contest. He had polled more votes than Sahu, his nearest rival, in all the Assembly segments except Kabisuryanagar.

Patnaik, who had polled 310,751 votes, secured maximum votes in Kodala followed by Khallikote and Jagannathprasad segments. Ramakrushna Patnaik,Sugyani Deo and Madhabananda Behera of the BJD are representing the segments, respectively.

The CPI candidate is banking heavily on the Congress which has three sitting legislators Usharani Panda (Aska), former minister Harihar Swain (Kabisuryanagar) and Udaynath Nayak (Hinjili). The Congress had polled 2,24,540 votes while the CPI candidate, Nityananda Pradhan, had secured only 41,400 votes in the last election.

Besides, Panda is a well-known Communist leader who had the distinction of defeating Biju Patnaik from this constituency in 1971. Patnaik was then contesting as Utkal Congress President, the regional outfit he had set up after walking out of the Congress. The constituency was known as Bhanjanagar then. Panda’s effort to repeat his success thrice thereafter — in 1977, 1980 and 1984 — had failed.

The CPI cadre are complaining that Congress legislators and party workers are not extending any support to them despite a directive from the PCC to its Ganjam district unit to work for Panda andensure his victory.A Congress leader of the district told The Indian Express that political workers in the Assembly segments are sharply divided on party lines. How can the Congress leadership expect its workers to campaign for the CPI which till recently was the main rival of the party in many Assembly segments, he wondered.

He also pointed out that the Assembly elections are due after a few months. In the absence of any electoral understanding, the CPI would certainly field its candidates against the Congress. It would be very difficult for the Congress to face the people and ask them to defeat the CPI when they are supporting the party in the Lok Sabha election.

NCP candidate Sahu and the independent, Panigrahi, have also become a headache for the CPI candidate as they too claim the support of the Congress and are using the Congress flag in their campaign.

While the Congress is a divided house, the BJD leaders are working seriously in their respective constituencies. The CPI campaign is, however,lacklustre. Except for appealing to the voters to curb the growth of communal forces, the party has no substantial issue to pin down the alliance candidate.

All these factors have made Naveen Patnaik’s task easy and he seems to be in for another term from Aska.