ROURKELA: Amid faulty candidate selection and lack of coordination among district leaders, the ruling BJD frittered away a golden chance of winning maximum Assembly seats under Sundargarh Lok Sabha constituency. Of seven Assembly seats, BJD won only two seats.
Under the Modi wave, the BJP has won three Assembly segments and the Lok Sabha seat. While the parallel wave of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik worked well elsewhere in Odisha, the BJD seemingly failed to perform on expected lines in Sundargarh. Only Sarada Prasad Nayak, with organisational ability, won convincingly by 10,200 votes while sitting RN Pali MLA Subrat Tarai managed to win by a narrow margin.
Sources said by sidelining grassroots aspirant Kusum Tete, BJD fielded former Congress MLA Jogesh Singh from Sundargarh seat. Kusum joined BJP and convincingly defeated Jogesh.
Talsara was another instance of self-goal by BJD as newbie Stephen W Soreng, a Protestant Christian, became surprise choice over popular Roman Catholic candidate Binay Toppo. Binay had lost in 2014 with a lean margin of 1,438 votes. Talsara is dominated by Roman Catholics while Protestants are in minority.
The Christian vote bank is a decisive factor in Birmitrapur, but a non-Christian Maklu Ekka was fielded ignoring hockey icon Dilip Tirkey or incumbent Zilla Parishad president Emma Ekka, both Roman Catholics.
In Bonai where the BJD was on a strong wicket after winning seven out of eight Zilla Parishad seats two years ago, a former Zilla Prarishad president Ranjit Kishan was fielded. Ranjit failed to tap the victory potential and tasted defeat by a margin of 12,029 votes. BJD failed to utilise the presence of former Bonai MLA Bhimsen Chaudhary.
The BJD surprisingly preferred Sunita Biswal, a political novice and daughter of former Congress Chief Minister Hemanand Biswal, for the Lok Sabha seat to take on BJP heavyweight Jual Oram. She ended up at the third spot getting only 25.18 per cent votes thus giving Jual a huge victory margin of 2.23 lakh votes.
In 2014, Dilip Tirkey had secured 3,21,679 votes and lost to Jual by a low margin of 18,829 votes.
A disgruntled BJD leader said Dilip was a better choice given his popularity in the district, especially among the tribal Christians.
Unhappy with the results, BJD secretary A C Mohanty said those in charge of the district have failed to read the ground reality and damaged BJD’s chances.