A year to go for the general elections and Assembly polls in Odisha, the BJP has picked a grassroots OBC leader and former minister Manmohan Samal, with a background in the RSS, as the new president of the state unit. Samal, 64, has been the BJP Odisha chief before, during 1999-04, and will replace Samir Mohanty. Starting his political career with the RSS students' wing ABVP, Samal spent time as an RSS cadre and is known for his organisational skills and for taking everyone along. In April 2000, Samal got elected to the Rajya Sabha, but resigned from the Upper House in 2004 on winning the Odisha Assembly election from Dhamnagar in Bhadrak. During the BJD-BJP coalition government from 2004 to 2008, Samal held key portfolios of Revenue and Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare. In December 2008, he resigned as minister over alleged involvement in a sex scandal. Samal maintained that he quit to save the image of his party. Forced to shift to neighbouring Chandabali constituency in 2009, after Dhamnagar became an SC-reserved seat, Samal lost, and has failed to win an election since. What seems to have propelled Samal to the top post now – ahead of Union Home Minister Amit Shah's visit to Odisha next month – is the BJP's surprise win from Dhamnagar in a by-election in November last year, attributed to his strategy. The BJD pulled out all the stops to wrest the seat from the saffron party, but failed. Even though caste or religious factors don't play as big a role in Odisha’s electoral politics, the selection of Samal will help the BJP shore up OBC support – a community that the party has been wooing across the country. Though there has been no formal survey of OBCs in the state, they are estimated to comprise around 54% of the state’s population. Samal’s appointment comes at a time when the ruling BJD is also trying hard to draw support of backward communities. The Naveen Patnaik government recently announced the start of a socio-economic survey of OBC communities, to be completed by July 12. According to BJP sources, Samal was the choice of Sunil Bansal, the party’s general secretary in charge of Odisha along with Telangana and West Bengal. Given that hardly a year is left for the elections, Samal has a task on his hand putting the Odisha BJP house in order against the BJD, which has now been in power since 23 years, including strengthening booth committees, smoothening tensions within the party, consolidating as many votes as he can in his native coastal Bhadrak region, and ensuring that the Modi government schemes which are the BJP's trump card are reaching the targeted beneficiaries. Briefing reporters in Bhadrak moments after his appointment, Samal said the BJP will work as a team and provide an alternative to the BJD.
