The Economic Times daily newspaper is available online now.

    Kandhamal, a battle between two outsiders

    Synopsis

    Kandhamal is a tribal-dominated constituency in Odisha.

    bcccccclll
    CM Naveen Patnaik’s BJD ended its alliance with BJP after the 2009 communal riots of Kandhamal over conversions and land rights.
    Achyuta Samanta is neither a tribal nor from Kandhamal, a tribal-dominated constituency in Odisha that he hopes to represent in the Lok Sabha as a Biju Janata Dal member.

    This educational entrepreneur heads Kalinga group of institutes in Bhubaneswar, which includes the residential Kalinga Institute of Social Science, or KISS, where 27,000 tribal children from across the state study for free. It is these children, and the goodwill of their families, that BJD is counting on to win in Kandhamal that will vote on Thursday.

    Samanta’s main rival is former BJP MP Kharabela Swain — also paradropped in Kandhamal after he returned to the party, after a decade this March 25.. Congress candidate Manoj Acharya is not seen as a key contestant despite being a Kandhamal native.

    Samanta has had a head start. He joined the BJD in February last year and was nominated to Rajya Sabha. Three months later he was made party co-observer for Kandhamal.

    Speaking to the regional TV channel Kanak News, Samanta had said he wasn’t that keen on contesting from a Lok Sabha seat but the party thought he should. “The work I have been doing for the last 30 years, I can now do with people directly,” he had said. “As a Rajya Sabha MP I wouldn’t be able to work on the overall development directly; no MLA, MP would let me.”

    Samanta has resources — a TV channel, a large public relation team, and, right now, more than a hundred KISS college students on special leave — to pitch in for campaign.

    “We were sent home on March 20 to help and explain his work,” a 19-year-old KISS student told ET. “He feeds and educates 27,000 children; we can’t give him anything in return, this is our contribution. He was a poor man; they showed us a film on his life.”

    His rival Swain believes that RSS, along with its sister organisations, has done a lot of work on the ground to make a BJP win possible in this constituency.

    Sitting at a roadside restaurant along with party members and RSS pracharaks after wrapping up his campaign, Swain told ET, “Politically I am totally a new man here and I was also outside of the BJP for the last decade.”

    But one peculiarity of the constituency is that it is made up of parts four districts—Ganjam, Nayagarh, Kandhamal and Boudh. “So no one knows who is a local and who is an outsider. My main opponent, Achyut Samant is also from Bhubaneswar,” Swain said.

    Hemendra Chandra Singh, from the erstwhile Nayagarh royal family, had won here in 2014 on a BJD ticket. He died mid-term in September of 2014 and was replaced by his wife Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh. Now, after being denied both a ticket for the Kandhamal MP dear and the Nayagarh assembly seat, she has joined BJP.

    Kandhamal constituency is sensitive to religious and ethnic divides.It also continues to see naxal violence. On Wednesday Sanjukta Diggal a woman poll personnel was shot dead in Phulbani.

    In fact, chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s BJD ended its alliance with BJP after the 2009 communal riots of Kandhamal over conversions and land rights.

    That was the year Swain too had quit BJP, venting against the Sangh's interference in the party.

    He told ET that it was “a conflict of opinion” and not ideological difference. He said he was chosen for Kandhamal because “RSS and BJP wanted to get rid of the stigma” associated with the riots. “Basically I was interested in contesting from Balasore where I have contested five elections and won three,” Swain told ET. “They (BJP and RSS) wanted a known face who should not be associated with a communal stigma.”

    The previous day Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was in Kandhamal. Swain has slipped the meeting. “If I sit on stage for three hours at this stage, who is going to go to the people?” says Swain.


    (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
    (Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 News, Budget 2024 Live Coverage, Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)

    Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.

    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.

    ...more

    (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
    (Catch all the Business News, Breaking News, Budget 2024 News, Budget 2024 Live Coverage, Events and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)

    Download The Economic Times News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.

    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.

    ...more
    The Economic Times

    Stories you might be interested in