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Tuesday, Apr 21, 2009
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Two high-flyers locked in tough battle

Prafulla Das

This coastal Orissa parliamentary constituency, going to the polls on April 23, has a businessman-turned politician and a cricket administrator pitted against each other. High-flying Biju Janata Dal Rajya Sabha member Baijayant “Jay” Panda is facing a tough challenge from cricketer-turned politician and Congress nominee Ranjib Biswal.

The U.S.-educated Mr. Panda, who possesses a private pilot’s license, has a helicopter parked behind his campaign office here to fly down to distant hamlets and river-locked villages to seek votes.

Congress sweep

Mr. Panda’s campaign managers are hopeful of victory as Kendrapara has not elected a Congress leader since 1952. And in the 1980 elections, Biju Patnaik was the only non-Congress leader to win from the seat while the Congress bagged the other 20 seats in the State.

In the Lok Sabha elections held in the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, Biju Patnaik again won the seat, though the Congress swept the rest of Orissa.

Mr. Panda, who is half way through his second term in the Rajya Sabha, is the elder son of prominent Oriya industrialist Bansidhar Panda.

Everything, however, doesn’t seem to be going in Mr. Panda’s favour. Mr. Biswal, currently president of the Orissa Cricket Association, has been able to unite all factions of the Congress thereby making things difficult for him.

Mr. Biswal was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 and 1998 from the neighhouring Jagatsinghpur seat. He chose to contest from Kendrapara this time, as his home constituency became a Scheduled Caste seat after delimitation.

Mr. Biswal also hails from a moneyed family: his father, the late Basant Kumar Biswal, was a Deputy Chief Minister of the State.

Interestingly, while Mr. Panda’s family owns an Oriya television channel, Mr. Biswal’s family owns a leading Oriya daily. As the Assembly elections are being held simultaneously, both the candidates are engaged in a high intensity campaign with their party nominees in all the seven Assembly segments under the seat. Both outsiders, they are trying hard to establish direct contact with the people in the rural areas.

There are a total of eight candidates in the race. The presence of Jnandev Beura, of the Bharatiya Janata Party, in the fray has complicated the situation for Mr. Panda. The split in the BJD-BJP alliance has left the BJP stronger in the region with former BJD heavyweight Bijoy Mohapatra joining the party.

BJD candidate Archana Nayak won the seat in 2004 defeating Srikant Jena of the Congress by a margin of 86,843 votes. But now, some of Mr. Panda’s supporters are apprehensive.

If Mr. Beura, a local, is able to divide the non-Congress votes, the constituency could see a Congress victory after a gap of 57 years.

Elections 2009 — Comprehensive coverage

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