Naveen Patnaik-Baijayant Panda in a battle of prestige

Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik and his yesteryear’s most trusted lieutenant Baijayant Jay are now fighting a bitter and acrimonious poll battle in Kendrapara Lok Sabha constituency.

Naveen, who is known for dealing very ruthlessly with his rivals, has fielded cine artist Anubhav Mohanty against Baijayant who a few months before joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Mr Panda, who was elected to the Lok Sabha twice from Kendrapara in 2009 and 2014 on BJD ticket, is heavily banking on his “good works” like construction of massive number of overhead drinking water projects and mini stadiums across his constituency.

The Congress has renominated lawyer-turned-politician Dharanidhar Nayak from Kendrapara, hoping that a triangular contest will help him win the seat, where the party has never won since the first general elections in 1952.

Kendrapara has been a BJD bastion where the BJP’s performance was not so impressive in the last two polls. In 2014, Panda had emerged victorious by securing 6,01,574 votes against Nayak, who had secured 3,92,466 votes. The BJP’s Bishnu Prasad Das had come a distant third with 1,18,707 votes.

The Kendrapada Lok Sabha constituency comprises seven Assembly segments — Salipur, Mahanga, Patkura, Kendrapara, Aul, Rajanagar and Mahakalapada.

A total of 16.71 lakh people are eligible to cast their votes in this constituency, including 8.78 lakh men, 7.93 lakh women and 108 belonging to the ‘other’ gender, an election official said.

Both the BJP and the BJD are confident of winning the seat to prove each other wrong.

Adding to Baijayant’s popularity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a rally in the constituency on April 23 when he directly attacked Naveen Patnaik for the first time during the elections.

Several senior leaders, including Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, have also held rallies in the constituency.

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