Political parties make last ditch effort to woo voters to win Odisha by-poll

By Bhagabat Tripathy

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 1: With just a few hours to go for campaigning to end for the November 3 by-poll, the Dhamnagar assembly constituency in Odisha is now witnessing the last ditch efforts by the contesting candidates. The leaders of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the BJP and Congress played all the tricks to woo the voters.

On Monday, the BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik at once addressed the voters of Dhamnagar through 13 virtual public rallies while the BJP leaders launched door-to-door campaigning as well as held a massive rally in Bhubaneswar to keep the political temp high.

The Congress candidate Baba Harekrushna Sethi and independent nominee Rajendra Das, nonetheless, undertook spirited battle at panchayat level through their voters.

The CM’s Monday address was nothing new. It appeared he was just reading out the script. The short script-speech, like   

“You have always stood by the BJD for its commitments towards the poor and other sections of the society. Our party has been striving for empowerment the women through the self-help group (SHG) movement. This time, we have fielded Abanti Das, an SHG leader, as our party candidate. Hope, you will vote for her and strengthen our effort to socio-economic and political empowerment of the women,” said the CM.

BJP veteran Manmohan Samal who is leading the campaign in the constituency, visited several villages and made personal interactions with the voters to win their hearts.

The Congress leader led by Sudarsan Das also left no stone unturned to ensure the victory of the party candidate Baba Harekrushna Sethi.

The by-poll battle has become more interesting with former MLA Rajendra Das, who after being denied the BJD ticket, threw his hat into the ring as a rebel candidate. BJD’s all efforts to placate Das ended in vain and entered the race as an independent candidate.

According to political analysts, if Das garners around 15,000 votes, it would be advantageous to the BJP.

In the 2019 election, the BJP candidate Bishnu Charan Sethi had won the seat by a slender margin of 4,625 votes largely because of the division of BJD votes. The BJD votes then got divided because of intense factionalism among local leaders.

The by-poll for Dhamnagar was necessitated because of the untimely death of incumbent legislator Bishnu Charan Sethi.