Tathya.in, May 17, 2009
Bhawanipatna:17/May/2009
Congress found a saving grace in Kalahandi.
While BJD has received an overwhelming support all over Orissa, Kalahandi district rejected the party.
The regional outfit not only lost the Kalahandi Lok Sabha seat but also the four, Junagarh, Bhawanipatna, Lanjigarh and Narla, out of five Assembly seats to the Congress party in the district.
Even the lone Dharamgarh Assembly constituency of Kalahandi was won by BJD candidate Puspendra Singhdeo was also largely due to intra party conflict within Congress, feel political observers.
In Dharmagarh constituency Samajbadi Party (SP) candidate Surendra Pattjoshi spoiled the chances of Congress candidate Rahas Bihari Behera.
Being local nominee Mr. Pattjoshi got majority of support in Dharamgarh block by taking a large percentage of votes cutting away from the congress MLA candidate.
Unlike Koraput district in general Kalahandi district had been more or less a non-Congress bastion since independence.
In 2004 General Elections to the Lok Sabha and Assembly Kalahandi district was swept by BJD and BJP combine.
However majority of Assembly seats in Koparut district and Koraput Lok Sabha seat went to congress party.
This time Congress party has been routed in Koraput, where as Congress is shinning in Kalahandi.
It seems Rs. 2 a kg rice scheme had gone very well with poor and rural mass of Orissa.
And it was also well received in KBK including Koraput and Kalahandi districts for which BJD gained a substantial vote bank among poor and tribal.
However, BJD suffered serious jolt in Kalahandi on local issues.
Demand for the Central University in Kalahandi played a pivotal role in this regard, feel intelgentsia.
Self-made complications by Naveen Patnaik on this matter further made local people angry.
When the Chief Minister met a delegation from Kalahandi in May 2008 he promised that Kalahandi will get the varsity.
Mr.Patnaik promised to use his best rapport in the Ministry of Human Recourse Development to establish the Central University in Kalahandi.
The Chief Minister also asked the delegation to send land details.
Despite receiving the land details from the Collector of Kalahandi in July 2008, Orissa CM, later in August 2008 unilaterally announced to establish the Central University in Koraput.
Thus he courted controversy and wrath of the young masses of the tribal zone.
Serious protests were raised in Kalahandi.
Gauzing the public emotions in the District, Congress Committee of Kalahandi immediately made it a political issue.
The party protested to State Government and exposed it as betrayal to people of Kalahandi by the Government.
This paid high dividends to the Congress party in the district during the election by getting substantially support from educated and intellectual mass in the district.
Just two months before election, local Congress leaders’ timely attack on Kalahandi district administration while highlighting poor condition of National Highway 201 caused by heavily loaded truck of Vedanta during mining transportation made State Government vulnerable to local public.
Other local issues like poor progress of Lanjigarh Road - Junagarh railway line, poor progress of private medical college, new secondary health facilities, and failure to construct a high laying over bridge over Hati river near Junagarh since past five years made local people upset against BJD led Government.
This anger paved the way for the Congress party, feel political observers.
2 comments:
This is absolutely bullshit and misleading on your part to say that Puspendra Singh Deo (BJD) won because of intra party conflict of Congress and Surendra Pattjoshi taking away chunk of congress votes.
Please remember Puspendra Singh Deo won by a handsome margin of 22800 appx votes. Even if you add the 18000 votes of Surendra Pattjoshi and add to Rasabihari Behera (Cong), still Puspendra would have won the seat by 5000 votes.
Please accept the fact that Dharamgarh constituency voters have rejected the Bramhin caste based tyranical politics of Mr Behra, Mr. Pattjoshi and Mr. Panda and chose to elect the youth leader with a clean image of Mr. Puspendra Singh Deo .
Your number is accepted but not your castist view. Are you aware about intra fighting in Dharamgarh congress that did not get ticket? Those people not only supported Mr Pattjoshi but also BJD. Hira Bag also took many congress votes. After the election district congress put notice on this people.
http://kalahandia.blogspot.com/2009/04/kalahandi-dcc-dismisses-8-party-workers.html
Rarely there was politics based on caste in Kalahandi/Dharamgarh. In my knowledge both Mr Pattjoshi and Mr. Behera was elected only once as MLA. Mr. Behera was elected another time as first congress MP, otherwise Kalahandi was bastion of former Maharaja P K Deo for 30 years. In fact, presently all the elected leaders, MLAs & MPs have been non-brahmin in past decade in the region.
One can not say Mr Pattjoshi, Mr. Panda and Mr. Behera received support from one caste (Brahmins are still a minority group in the region though economically better than others but this is the trend for whole India, Dharamgarh is not only region). I think you are trying to bring caste into it which was not a deciding factor. Mr Pattjoshi received 18800 votes which is not small for MLA candidate for a party like SP in Orissa. His support came not only from brahamins/upper caste but from all castes, specially, in Dharamgarh block. Singhdeo comes from Jamidari family, which was more powerful then Brahmin Gontia in Kalahandi if you know about history. If Mr. Bikram Deo lost this election, one can not say people rejected King/Jamidari power. If Bhakta babu had lost past 3 elections consecutively, nobody said people rejected dalit (schedule caste) candidate. In fact Bhakta babu has substantial good rapport among Brahmins in Kalahandi. All these results are just coincidence and there is rarely caste factor in Orissa in the election. But there are few (unsecured) people who are trying to play caste card but has failed so far. Future will tell whether it will play important role in Kalahandi like in Bihar or UP though BSP is improving is caste tally in Orissa.
On image of Mr. Singhdeo: please find in Koksara. I feel his votes were largely due to Naveen babu and from congress rivals who supported him. Are you also aware about the money power? It’s a public forum, if you are interested we can discuss personally on the candidates in Kalahandi who bought votes from poor people by using money power. For your information, money power was repeated second time by two candidates in Kalahandi (a leader who has tasted that money can win him/her an election rarely serious about development of his/her constituency)
Last 2-3 times Mr. Singdeo has been representing Koksara, how many times he has come in news for any reasons? Educated people in the region say Mr. Bira Sipka was more active then Mr. Singhdeo. Mr. Singdeo was also alleged to be slow and lazy in his constituency among all past MLAs in Kalahandi. For getting state govt approval for a college in Koksara region, people approached Durjyodhan Majhi, Pardeep Naik, Bira Sipka etc, why if their own representative Mr. Singhdeo could have done this?
I rarely find him in the news for any initiatives for Kalahandi's development in last 10-15 years. But I did find Pradeep Naik, Himansu Meher, Bira Sipka and Durjyoodhan Majhi in the news on their initiatives on Kalahandi.
I still think BJD won in Dharamgarh due to Naveen babu popular scheme and congress’s intra-fighting despite the number/figure shows different, as Bhakta babu has substantial supporters in Dharamgarh region and congress MP got more votes then BJD MP in the region.
If Mr. Singhdeo is a good candidate, let’s see and hope, he has mandate for next 5 years and I keep on monitoring news sources.
I wish he becomes a good and dynamic representative for Kalahandi as he is young and educated.
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