Baripada: Even as leaders of every political parties have started preparations for the forthcoming elections, the block-level BJD observers are now directly eliciting responses from people about aspirant leaders in all nine assembly segments in Mayurbhanj district.
If party sources are to be believed, people are in favour of changing candidates in seven seats this time.
BJD represents nine Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha in Mayurbhanj. The party had to face huge debacles in the panchayat polls.
In view of this, the ruling party lays stress on finding competent leaders in seven assembly segments.
Now, the number of aspirants in all seven constituencies is on the rise. Morada is the only seat reserved for general category. This constituency has many ticket aspirants who have started appealing to people by organising meetings and gatherings.
Debashish Mohanty, the executive president of the district BJD unit is the front runner for the BJD ticket in this seat.
Mohanty made his show of strength by organising a meeting at Gadia two days ago. About 15,00 people had gathered there. However, many frontline leaders were conspicuous by their absence. Only block observer Ganesh Mohaptra was present.
Significantly, presence of women was quite visible in the meeting. This indicates, the party has laid focus on garnering women votes.
Debasish has already worked in various capacities at the state and district levels.
When his name was proposed for the post of president of the district unit, leaders of his rival group strongly opposed him. For his organizational skills, he was rehabilitated as executive president of the party at the district level.
Party workers said that since he is close to district observer Arun Sahu, he has been asked to conduct organizational programmes in Morada.
Samiti member Manasmita Das said that Mohanty has been in constant touch with people. When asked about the meeting, the district observer refused to make any comment on it.
PNN