Bhubaneswar: Political parties including the BJP, BJD and the Congress had fielded a number of Odia actors as contestants in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
BJP had nominated actors Sidhant Mohapatra, Akash Das Nayak and Arindam Roy from Digapahandi, Korei and Salipur Assembly constituencies respectively. Similarly, BJD had fielded actress Varsha Priyadarshini from Barachana Assembly constituency and Congress had nominated Manoj Mishra from Bolangir.
Among them, both Sidhant and Akash won from their respective constituencies. However, lady luck did not shine on the others. It should be stated here that in 2009 and 2014, Sidhant had contested from the Berhampur Lok Sabha constituency and emerged victorious as a BJD candidate.
This time Sidhant defeated BJD’s Biplab Patro by a margin of 16,000 votes. Akash on the other hand defeated BJD’s Sandhyarani Das by a margin of a little over 5,000 votes from the Korei Assembly segment. Both Sidhant and Akash had left the BJD alleging that they were sidelined by the party. Both Sidhant and Akash proved that they have the ability to win while contesting in a different party other than the BJD.
Only Prashanta Nanda had achieved the feat before. He had won the Assembly elections in 2000 on a BJP ticket and in 2009 he emerged victorious representing the NCP. However, Arindam Roy, who also had left the BJD and joined the BJP was not so lucky. He lost from the Salipur Assembly constituency to BJD’s Prashanta Behera by a margin of a little over 7,000 votes.
Varsha who was nominated by the BJD was beaten by BJP’s Amar Kumar Nayak by a margin of 6,310 votes. Manoj Mishra, on the other hand, finished third behind BJP’s Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo and BJD’s Surendra Singh Bhoi from the Bolangir Lok Sabha seat.
ARINDAM GANGULY, OP