Pottangi: Party workers and voters under the Pottangi Assembly segment in Koraput district have started searching for a new face as all three mainstream parties are eyeing to garner the votes of Paraja tribal community to wrest the seat.
The Pottangi Assembly constituency, reserved for the candidates of Scheduled Tribes (ST), comprises Nandapur, Semiliguda, and Pottangi blocks as well as four panchayats of Koraput block. With the elections approaching, secret parleys have begun in various parties for tickets and party leaders have started drawing strategies to win the polls.
Former BJD leader Jayaram Pangi, who had won this seat in 2000 and 2004 elections, had considerable influence in this Assembly segment for some years.
However, Congress candidate Rama Chandra Kadam won from this seat in 2009 following the delimitation of boundaries of the constituency. Later, BJD’s Prafulla Kumar Pangi won from this seat in 2014 and Pitam Padhi in 2019.
Notably, this Assembly seat was once the citadel of Congress party. However, the grand old party lost to BJD here in the 2014 and 2019 elections. This has concerned the congress leaders and workers here. They are putting in extra effort to win this year from this seat with the hope that fielding a new face would help the party get a huge margin.
Speculations are rife that former MLA Kadam may again get the ticket this time. However, he is not the lone hopeful as Gobind Khara, the deputy organiser of Congress Sevadal is also aspiring for a ticket from this seat.
Similarly, former block chairperson and Koraput MP’s nominee Shukra Khara, sarpanch Pitambar Krisani of Rajput panchayat of Semiliguda block and another leader Samba Pangi who is yet to join the party are also aspiring for tickets.
Meanwhile, incumbent MLA Pitam Padhi is the frontrunner for the BJD party ticket. He is followed by former MLA Prafulla Kumar Pangi, BJD’s Zilla Parishad (ZP) member Laichan Khara (younger brother of Congress aspirant Shukra Khara), retired teacher Biswanath Khara, former Nandapur block chairperson Lakshmi Hantal, former ZP member Prabhat Gurumai from Nandapur block as well as Chaitanya Nandibali, who contested as an independent in 2019 elections, are hoping for tickets from the ruling party.
Chaitanya Hantal is the lone aspirant for the BJP party ticket while names of other aspirants are yet to crop up. The segment has voters from general category, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) communities. Members of Dora and some other tribes had boycotted the elections in the past protesting their non-inclusion in the list of ST communities.
After being elected as MLA, Padhi had assured them tribal status but their demands are yet to be fulfilled.
The constituency has a majority of voters from Paraja, Kondh, Gadba, Rana, Mali and Dulia tribes. However, with Paraja tribals being the majority among voters, all the parties have set their eyes on the community.
Party workers said that the voters of Paraja community will play a decisive role in the polls. All three parties have started preparing blueprints to grab the votes of Paraja community members.
The Kotia panchayat, which comes under this constituency, is in the eye of the storm for owing to border disputes with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. However, no party is showing any interest or sincerity in resolving the disputes, as all are harping on government developmental programmes or welfare schemes to grab the votes.
However, the aspirants will have to confront the poll boycott call of Dora community voters as the issue may again crop up in the 2024 elections like the previous polls.
Notably, Pitam Padhi who left the Congress party and joined BJD won from this constituency in 2019 by defeating his nearest Congress rival Rama Chandra Kadam by 51,244 votes.
PNN