Lok Sabha Elections 2024: A tough fight ahead for both BJD and BJP in Odisha's Sambalpur

Sambalpur: At the epicentre of mineral rich western Odisha, senior Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan is engaged in a close fight in what probably is the most keenly watched Lok Sabha contest in the state.

While Pradhan is pitted against Pranab Prakash (Bobby) Das, the organisational secretary in BJD and officially number two in the party, making it an intense battle, what remains at the back of the mind of both is the fact that in the last two Parliamentary polls, the fate of the winning candidate was sealed by a narrow margin.

In 2019, the margin between the winner (BJP) and loser was under 1 per cent, translating to just about 9,000 votes. The gap was 3 per cent in 2014 when BJD won the seat and 2 per cent in 2009 when Congress emerged as the winner. All the three parties won the Sambalpur seat once in the last 15 years.

Incidentally, the last time Pradhan contested an election was also in 2009 when he lost the assembly poll. Subsequently, he was elevated to the Rajya Sabha by the saffron party and rose to become one of the senior most ministers in the Narendra Modi cabinet.

“MPs aspire to become ministers. We have given you a minister as the BJP candidate here. This time lotus will bloom in Odisha,” Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Tuesday at a crowded rally at the PHD ground here in support of Pradhan, before dashing off to Samaleswari temple, the presiding deity of the city.

Outside the 16th century pilgrim site, Samar Pradhan, a local auto-rickshaw driver said it would not be a cake walk for the minister as the BJD candidate was not a push-over and people were happy with large scale renovation work at the state’s second most important temple.

The Rs 200 crore redevelopment of the temple and surrounding areas was inaugurated by Naveen Patnaik in January, aiming to make it a major pilgrim site in western Odisha. The government will also start a Mahanadi aarti in front of the temple for which ghats and a sky-walk are being constructed.

A month later Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to Sambalpur in February to inaugurate the permanent campus of the Indian Institute of Management. He shared the stage with Patnaik and referred to him as “friend” while not mentioning a word about BJD.

But the bonhomie disappeared fast following the failure of a plan to stitch a BJP-BJD alliance. The saffron party’s star campaigners are now crisscrossing states fiercely attacking the BJD supremo as it hopes to gain from Odisha to make up for the loss of seats in other parts of the country.

BJP accused Naveen babu for picking up an outsider like Das who hails from the coastal area to contest the poll in western Odisha.

“But even Pradhan is not a local as he comes from Angul, which is more than 100 km away from Sambalpur and is part of another Lok Sabha constituency,” said Suraj Behra, a resident of Hirakud, a nearby industrial township housing Hindalco aluminium factory and Hirakud dam.

Out of the seven assembly constituencies under Sambalpur, BJD currently holds four while BJP has three. Over the years, the vote share of Congress has declined. “This time it will be a neck to neck contest, but the BJP may have a slight advantage in campaigning because of money power,” said Samar Pradhan, a local.