Bhubaneswar: With the first phase of the Panchayat polls in the state remaining just few days away, campaigning by the candidates has reached its peak. Candidates in the fray are adopting all their skills to woo the voters by door to door visits and organizing meetings in small groups. The festival of democracy is seeing all leaders from the grassroots level to state level and in some places national level leaders campaigning for their candidates. The Panchayat polls this time are somewhat different when compared to the previous one. The three major political parties, the Biju Janata Dal, Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have given candidates for the Zilla Parishad elections and are supporting candidates for the Sarapancha And Samiti Sabhya elections.
The campaign trail this year has deviated from the earlier polls as we can see from the trends visible from across the state. The ruling Biju Janata Dal leaders and workers can be seen in every nook and corner of the state visiting villages to campaign for their candidates, but on the other hand the BJP and the Congress have turned invisible. The Bharatiya Janata Party has been provocative of its challenge to the ruling party but on reality, on the ground there is very little visibility of its leaders campaigning in the interiors. The Biju Janata Dal, with its strong rural base has strategically placed its leaders in various districts who are campaigning for their candidates day and night. But the BJP leadership seems not much serious about the polls. It seems as if the opposition party has already understood the outcome of the polls and they don’t want to waste their time. Another factor that is hurting the BJP is the leadership is inaccessible to the people on ground. The voters are reacting to the visit of the BJP leaders only during the pool season and their ire is understandable. Of late, a few leaders of the party, especially in Western Odisha were seen campaigning for their candidates. And in other places of Coastal and South Odisha there is not much enthusiasm among the BJP cadre. Political analysts are of the opinion that the BJP is lacking the voters’ enthusiasm towards them. They are making big promises but not reachable to the masses.
The Congress Party on the other hand is also experiencing internal feud and its leaders are not visible in the peak campaign days. Some of the Congress MLAs such as Narasingha Mishra and Tara Bahinipati were seen on the campaign trail very late but have enhanced their campaigning for their supporters.
Biju Janta Dal Organisational Secretary Pranab Prakash Dash has been inspiring the party cadre in various districts and other senior leaders of the party are paying day and night visits to the villages and Panchayat to campaign for the candidates. While the Bharatiya Janata Party’s senior leaders have started campaigning late, the MPs of the Party are nowhere in the picture much to the chagrin of the candidates.
With the polls just few days away, the overall campaign scenario has just heated up and the Independent candidates, who form a large segment of the candidates in the fray, are also trying to woo the voters by various means.