Bargarh: With 10 candidates in the fray, electioneering is heating up for the bypoll to the Padampur Assembly seat in Bargarh district. The bypoll slated for December 5 is set for a tough triangular contest among the BJD, BJP and Congress candidates. However, voters are now focused on old and lingering major issues like demand of district status to Padampur, Padampur-Nuapada new railway linkage, pending crop insurance claims and input subsidies.
Farmers have been pressing for sorting out their issues first. Political observers say these issues will have much implication on the political fortunes of the candidates. The ruling BJD and opposition BJP are blaming each other on such issues to win brownie points. Congress has targeted the BJD and the BJP for their negligence in Padampur development.
All these issues are said to be old, but have much significance for the electorate as no efforts have been made to sort them out till date. In the past, the electorate of Padampur has given chances to all the three parties. Considering the electoral history here since 1961, people have given more chances to the Congress. Congress candidates were elected in 1961, 1971, 1974, 1980, 1985 and 2004 from this Assembly seat. Congress candidate Satya Bhusan Sahu was elected thrice from here.
On the other hand, BJP candidate Pradip Purohit, who initially faced debacles, had won the seat in 2014. However, Purohit had to face the drubbing in 2019, paving the way for BJD’s Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha to win the poll. However, this time, Purohit is confident of his win claiming that people of Padampur are unhappy with the government and siding with him.
At a press meet, Thursday, he accused the BJD of preventing him from carrying out campaigns in some villages, pointing fingers at Health Minister Naba Kishore Das. Now, the BJD has fielded Bariha’s daughter Barsha and is leaving no stone unturned to ensure her win. A number of BJD stalwarts like Prasanna Acharya, Rita Sahu, Srimayee Mishra, Rohit Pujari and several other western Odisha leaders have been campaigning for Barsha. The ruling party is also hopeful of retaining the seat.
However, people are in fact miffed over the old issues. The demand for district status to Padampur is very old. During the tenure of Biju Patnaik as Chief Minister, people of Padampur had pitched for separate district status to Padampur as he was re-organising the districts at that time. Padampur is a drought prone district. Insurance claims and input subsidies are two pestering issues of the affected farmers. However, these issues always go unaddressed every year.
Besides, railway link to Padampur is another long pending issue. “When elections approach, parties come with loads of promises, but later nothing happens,” said social activist Niroj Dora. Another local resident Ramesh Gurla observed that now Padampur has become an open theatre. All candidates come with folding hands and some with crying faces to beg for votes exchanging promises. After elections are over, the leaders forget everything, leaving people to suffer sans facilities, said Kanhei Dora, another villager. He added that people are not taking leaders into confidence.