BJP’s Odisha face Dharmendra Pradhan vs BJD’s No. 3 ‘Bobby’ Das in Sambalpur
Waiting outside the renovated complex of the famed Samaleswari Temple, Sambalpur native Hrusikesh Swain responds quickly to a question to say he will vote for the BJP on May 25 in this Lok Sabha seat. However, when asked about his choice for the Assembly elections, he pauses.
“Narendra Modi and Naveen Patnaik are good leaders, for the country and Odisha, respectively. I want to vote for the BJD in the Assembly polls, because of the Patnaik government’s work for the Samaleswari shrine. But I am still undecided,” Swain says.
The Sambalpur Lok Sabha segment in western Odisha was won thrice by the BJD’s Prasanna Acharya in 1998, 1999 and 2004. However, since 2009, a new MP has been elected every election. While the Congress’s Amar Pradhan won in 2009, he finished third in 2014, when the BJD’s Nagendra Pradhan bagged the seat. In 2019, the BJP’s Nitesh Ganga Deb defeated the BJD’s Nalinikanta Pradhan to win.
In the ring this time are the BJP’s Odisha face and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who returns to the state electoral battlefield after 15 years, versus Jajpur MLA Pranab Prakash Das aka Bobby. A senior BJD leader, he is considered the third-most powerful individual in the party after the CM and his close aide V K Pandian.
Dharmendra Pradhan contested in Odisha last from the Pallahara Assembly seat in 2009, when he lost to the BJD’s Rabi Narayan Pani. Subsequently, he has been twice elected to the Rajya Sabha.
Before 2009, Pradhan was elected to the state Assembly once, from Pallahara in 2000, and to the Lok Sabha once, from Deogarh in 2004.
As the BJD picks up the gauntlet against Pradhan, what is likely to impact its prospect in the high-profile fight is the fact that Das belongs originally to the state's coastal belt. The “outsider” tag has been picked up by the BJP as a refrain.
Pabitra Mohan Nayak, a resident of Deogarh, says the BJD “is very strong in Sambalpur”. “However, there are clear cultural and linguistic differences between the state's coastal and western regions. Even if Das wins, we are not sure how much time he will give to the constituency.”
If Pradhan is seen as one of the BJP’s chief ministerial faces should it win Odisha, Das also comes from famed pedigree. The son of the late Ashok Das, a popular Janata Dal leader, the 51-year-old is a three-time Jajpur MLA and was made BJD organisational secretary in 2020.
To fight the “outsider” tag, Das earlier declared Sambalpur as his second home, pointing to the fact that his father Ashok Das had pursued his higher education in the city, making it a “60- to 70-year relationship”. He has been sported consistently in Sambalpuri Ikat shirts in the poll campaign, instead of his regular white shirt.
The BJD has also pooled its organisational strength behind Das, and is counting on the Patnaik government’s work towards developing the Samaleswari shrine to pay off, along with its support base among women and welfare scheme beneficiaries.
Both Patnaik and Pandian, the BJD’s star campaigner this time, have spent extensive time in Sambalpur. They have accused Pradhan of doing nothing for the constituency as Union minister, and underlined that even as Das is being called an “outsider”, he has jettisoned his own former constituency of Deogarh.
However, the allegation may not cut much ice. Pradhan is a native of Talcher in Angul district, two of whose Assembly constituencies, Athmallik and Chendipada, are part of the Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat. Besides, a sizeable part of Deogarh, including the Deogarh and Kuchinda Assembly segments, fall under Sambalpur.
As part of preparations for contesting from Sambalpur, Pradhan has been nurturing the constituency for over a year through regular public relations outreaches. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sambalpur in February while Union Home Minister Amit Shah has campaigned several times in Sambalpur, apart from other BJP heavyweights. Modi pitched in for Pradhan again while campaigning in Angul for the neighbouring Dhenkanal Lok Sabha seat.
As far as Assembly segments under the Sambalpur seat go, both the BJP and BJD have a strong presence in all.
When it comes to caste, Sambalpur's arithmetic technically favours Pradhan, as he belongs to the OBC Chasa (farmer) community, which is in a majority in the region. But there is a twist in this tale: the Congress decision to change its candidate to former MP Nagendra Pradhan, a BJD turncoat.
The Congress’s organisation in Sambalpur is weak, but Nagendra, a two-time MLA from the Athmallik seat that is part of the Sambalpur constituency, has his own support base. Nagendra could eat into Dharmendra's Chasa votes.
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