BJP targets Congress in southern
tribal belt of Orissa
Imran Khan in Bhubaneswar
The Bharatiya Janata Party is making a concerted bid to storm another Congress bastion, with the saffron surge spreading to the southern tribal belt of Orissa. Though the BJP may not have an edge in the three Lok Sabha seats in this region, the party is giving sleepless nights to Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang and former chief minister J B Patnaik, both of whom have their wives in the fray.
J B Patnaik, whose wife Jayanti is contesting the Berhampur seat, has been personally supervising her campaign. Along with his close aide, state Youth Congress president, Lalutendu Mahapatra, he has been camping in the town for over two weeks now.
Patnaik knows his wife's defeat in Berhampur may finish his political career. He has publicly admitted he may not be able to campaign for other party candidates, tied-up as he is in Berhampur.
And that is half the battle won for the BJP. By restricting two major leaders to just two constituencies, the BJP has the rest of the state all to themselves. They have already made their presence felt in coastal Orissa, while sweeping the western and northern parts of the state. This time, quite naturally, the southern tribal belt is their target.
Out of three Lok Sabha seats in this region, the BJP is concentrating on Berhampur and Nabarangrpur. It has left the third seat -- Koraput -- to its alliance partner the Biju Janata Dal. The Congress has fielded Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang's wife Hembati from Koraput.
The Congress has a formidable record in this region. The party won all three Lok Sabha seats during the anti-Congress waves of 1977 and 1989. In fact, the party has never lost the Koraput seat since Independence. Berhampur too has stayed with the Congress since 1957. And as far as Nabarangpur is concerned, Congress MP in the dissolved 12th Lok Sabha Khagpati Pradhani won the seat nine times in a row. He has decided not to contest this time, citing personal problems.
However, the BJP's optimism stems from the fact the 1991 Lok Sabha election and 1995 assembly election saw the party's vote percentage go up in this region.
In the last election Jayanti Patnaik won Berhampur with a slender 35,250 votes (anything below 100,000 votes for the Congress is considered slender here) against a weak candidate. This time, however, she faces a strong candidate in Anadi Sahu of the BJP.
Till two years ago Sahu was a close associate of Patnaik and knows the constituency like the back of his hand. In the last election when Sahu was the BJP's campaign manager in Berhampur, the party had managed a lead for this assembly segment.
Sahu has been nurturing this constituency for a long time now. Even before his candidature was announced, he had completed his visit to almost all the blocks and panchayats in the constituency.
Hembati Gamang is likely to retain the Koraput seat. Thanks to her husband's personal equation with the tribals, they are likely to vote en block in his wife's favour.
Hembati Gamang first won the seat in 1972 and has never looked back. She is pitted against Jayram Pangi of the BJD. The two have met on five earlier occasions, and each time Gamang emerged the winner.
This time Pangi is making an emotional appeal. He wants to win the seat by just one vote. Why? Because it was Giridhar Gamang's solitary vote which brought down the Vajpayee government.
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