Lok Sabha Election 2024: During this Lok Sabha election in Berhampur, the silk city of Odisha, two such leaders will face each other who have left their old party and joined some other party. The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, has fielded Bhrigu Baxipatra, who was the vice-president of the Odisha unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) till last week, from the Berhampur seat.
BJP has made Pradeep Panigrahi, expelled from BJD, its candidate from Berhampur Lok Sabha constituency. Panigrahi, a three-time MLA from Gopalpur assembly constituency, was once a close aide of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and also looked after the affairs of the regional party’s Ganjam district before being expelled from the BJD. Congress has fielded Rashmi Ranjan Patnaik from Berhampur Lok Sabha constituency.
The Berhampur Lok Sabha constituency was once a Congress stronghold and even Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao had contested and won the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat in the 1996 general elections. Ganjam district has been a stronghold of BJD since 2009. BJD had won 12 out of 13 assembly seats in the district in the 2019 elections. The fight for Berhampur Lok Sabha seat will mainly be between Bakshipatra and Panigrahi. However, Congress candidates are also in the fray.
Panigrahi was expelled from BJD
Panigrahi was expelled from BJD on charges of “anti-people activities” and the Naveen Patnaik government even got him arrested in alleged corruption cases. BJP candidate and Gopalpur MLA Panigrahi is appealing to the people in his public meetings to end their inclination towards Patnaik. BJD has chosen Bakshipatra with the sole intention of capturing a certain vote of BJP to defeat Panigrahi. Both the parties are trying their best to win the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat, which is considered the gateway to Southern Odisha.
BJD leader VK Pandian, a close aide of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, appealed to the people to vote for his party at a meeting in Bhubaneswar on Sunday. Pandian told the people, please do not look at who the candidate is. The Chief Minister is contesting elections from all 147 assembly seats and 21 Lok Sabha constituencies. Earlier, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJD candidate Chandrashekhar Sahu had won the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 94,000 votes by defeating BJP candidate and his rival Bhrigu Bakshipatra.
Workers of both political parties are also confused
Apart from the voters, workers of both the political parties working at the grassroots level also seem to be confused. A BJD worker in Ganjam district said, we have to campaign for the candidate whom we had strongly opposed last time (in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections). There are seven assembly constituencies under Berhampur Lok Sabha seat, which include five seats in Ganjam district and two seats in the neighboring Gajapati district. Of these, all five seats in Ganjam district are held by the ruling BJD, while Congress and BJP represent one assembly seat each in Gajapati district. Voting for Berhampur Lok Sabha seat will be held on May 13 along with three other Lok Sabha constituencies Nabarangpur, Koraput and Kalahandi.