Television to telescopic vision: Sambit Patra keeps Puri in sight

This time, a year to go for the next Lok Sabha polls, Patra, 48, is already at work. If the meal at the tribal home was a wake-up call for his rivals, Patra on April 11 walked on a hot coal bed at Samang panchayat in Puri district as part of a ritual to appease the goddess at a local festival – not a feat for the faint-hearted.

Even during his month-long campaign stint in 2019, Patra had gone the distance to shed the image of being an “outsider”. This included spending almost the entire April heat in traditional dhoti-kurta, a saffron gamcha thrown across his shoulders and sandalwood paste on his forehead; dropping in for meals at homes of his constituents; feeding at least one family with his own hands; spending nights at houses of voters; riding pillion on the back of motorcycles; joining fishermen in Puri slums in singing Telugu songs; and bathing in ponds to the chant of mantras, explaining: “People who bathe in tiled bathrooms cannot know the problems of villagers.”

A picture of Patra carrying the idol of Lord Jagannath while campaigning had even led him into a minor scrap, with the Congress complaining to the Election Commission over the use of a religious symbol for polls.

Referring to the above, a BJP leader said: “People may have trolled Patra on social media, but he connected with the people, and successfully countered the perception that he was a ‘Delhi neta’. Patra proved that he was a simple man and one of them.”

Sources in the BJP said Patra has got a go-ahead from the central leadership to prepare to fight the Puri Lok Sabha seat again in 2024, and hence the recent flurry of activities. In recent days, he has spent more time in Puri than in Delhi.

Surama Padhy, former BJP minister and an ex-MLA from Ranpur Assembly segment under Puri constituency, says Patra has “great acceptance” among people across all the seven Assembly constituencies in the Lok Sabha seat.

“He has been visiting these constituencies despite having lost the seat. Voters here compare Patra to the BJD MP (Pinaki Mishra), who has not visited any village here once since winning,” Padhy says, confident that the BJP will do better in Puri in 2024.

Besides, even while he himself lost, Patra’s efforts and the BJP’s growing popularity helped the party win two Assembly segments — Puri and Brahmagiri — under the Lok Sabha seat last time.

BJP leaders also point to the fact that the party’s vote share in the Puri Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 saw a 25% rise over the previous general election.

In 2014, the BJP’s Ashok Sahu had bagged 2.15 lakh votes, comprising 20.76% of the total. Patra got more than double: 5.26 lakh votes, or 46.37% of the total.

BJD general secretary Bijay Nayak dismisses Patra’s efforts, saying the BJP national spokesperson was known for resorting to such “theatrics” and that people of Puri had given him a “befitting reply” in 2019.

“We don’t need to do such antics as BJD leaders always connect with the people, as directed by our leader and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. We believe in hard work and our work always speaks. We remain with the people, which has been proven time and again as people of Odisha have blessed the leadership of Naveen Patnaik successively,” says Nayak.