KCR plans get an Odisha boost; gets tribal leader Giridhar Gamang and son, others on way

Gamang Jr said they will join KCR’s party, though the date is yet to be finalised. “During our meeting with KCR, he briefed us on a scientific survey his party has done in several states, including Odisha, and on the prospects they have seen in our state, especially with the vacuum in the Opposition camp. In Odisha, BJD president and CM Naveen Patnaik is controlling all the parties,” Shishir told reporters during a news conference.

Leaders of all the major parties — the BJD, BJP and Congress — refuted the charges levelled by Gamang.

Lauding Telangana’s development model, Gamang Jr said: “KCR’s party has big plans for Odisha, which will be unfolded gradually. I can say that the BRS has decided to concentrate on Odisha as its alternative force.”

Though the Gamang duo’s exit from the BJP may not cost the party dear — even their entry had made little difference to its fortunes in the Gamang stronghold of Koraput — what needs to be seen is their role in the BRS.

The southern part of Odisha, spreading from Ganjam to Malkangiri, has a considerable number of Telugu voters, and the BRS seems to be trying to cash in on them. The region has four Lok Sabha seats and around 30 Assembly segments.

Gamang, a tribal face from the southern part of Odisha, has a base in almost all constituencies under the Koraput parliamentary segment, which he has represented in the Lok Sabha nine times.

The 79-year-old tribal leader last fought in 2014 from the seat on a Congress ticket and lost to the BJD’s Jhina Hikaka. Gamang polled 3.75 lakh votes compared to 3.95 lakh votes for Hikaka.

Gamang is most known nationally for his controversial vote during a no-confidence motion that led to the fall of the 13-month-old NDA government at the Centre led by A B Vajpayee, on April 17, 1999. Despite having become the CM of Odisha two months before the vote, he had not resigned from the Lok Sabha and cast his vote in the no-confidence motion.

Still dogged by that 23-year-old issue, Gamang clarified recently that he had done nothing wrong as he was bound to follow the Congress line as per norms of the anti-defection law.

Gamang Jr, 46, contested as the BJP candidate from the Gunupur Assembly seat in 2019 and finished fourth by securing 16,491 votes, getting 11.55 per cent of the total polled votes. On Wednesday, Shishir said a BJP leader from South Odisha had worked hard to ensure his defeat in Gunupur.

Asked about their contribution to BJP in the past seven years, the two alleged lack of support from the party in the region. “Neither did he (the leader) work to strengthen the party in southern Odisha, nor allow us to work. Even after I aired the grievance with the state leadership, including Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, nothing happened,” Shishir told The Indian Express.

Gamang and his son said their reason behind quitting the party is the “humiliation” they faced in the BJP. “An insult is tolerable, but not humiliation. I have not tolerated humiliation in the past, nor will I tolerate it now,” said Gamang.

In his resignation letter addressed to BJP national president J P Nadda, the senior Gamang said he has realised that he has been unable to discharge his political, moral and social duty to the people of Odisha during the last several years.

The BRS is believed to be in touch with several other leaders of political and farmers’ organisations from Odisha. Former Koraput MP Jayaram Pangi, once considered a heavyweight in Koraput district, is likely to join the BRS on January 27.

Pangi, who had switched to the BJP in May 2017 after nixing ties with the BJD, resigned from the BJP in October 2021 saying he wanted to focus on his demand for Union Territory status to the undivided Koraput district and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.