Bhubaneswar: After winning five seats in by-elections held since the Assembly Elections of 2019, the Biju Janata Dal is all set to wrest the Dhamnagar seat once again. Thanks to the charismatic leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and the people friendly governance, the Biju Janata Dal candidate has emerged as the favorite to win the by-polls with a comfortable margin.
The by-polls for the Dhamnagar Assembly Constituency in Bhadrak were necessitated due to the sad demise of Bishnu Charan Sethi of the Bharatiya Janata Party in September this year.
The Biju Janata Dal under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has once again showed its commitment to women empowerment and fielded grassroots level leader Abanti Das as its candidate for Dhamnagar constituency. While Abanti is the present Tihidi Block Chairperson, she has been a great grassroots leader with strong support base in Dhamnagar. By nominating her to contest the elections, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has once again showed that the priority for him is women empowerment. According to political pundits, Abanti is very much likely to be the choice of the Dhamnagar electorate and there will be just a smooth sailing for the Biju Janata Dal.
Since the Assembly Elections of 2019, the Biju Janata Dal has won all the by-polls held in the state starting from Bijepur in 2019. In 2020 by-polls, the Biju Janata Dal wrested the Balasore seat from the Bharatiya Janata Part as its candidate Swarup Kumar Das won the by-polls with a good margin. The same year, the BJD also won the Tirtol constituency in Jagatsinghpur. In 2021, Rudra Pratap Maharathy won the Pipili by-polls after the demise of veteran BJD leader Pradeep Maharathy. In 2022, BJD’s Alaka Mohanty won the Brajrajnagar by-polls.
In all these by-polls, the Biju Janata Dal has shown how Naveen’s leadership and a people oriented governance can help in winning elections. The party acted in a planned manner and the strength lies in its reach at the grassroots level. The Bharatiya Janata party on the other hand is slowly declining all across the state since the last General and Assembly Elections.
Two defeats at its own stronghold places explains the reality.
In the recently held Panchayat and Urban elections too the Biju Janata Dal proved that the Party is the Numero Uno and the saffron party is nowhere nearer to compete with it.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded Suryavanshi Suraj, son of late Bishnu Charan Sethi, for the by-polls. It hopes to garner the sympathy of voters during the by-polls but the Biju Janata Dal is all set to wrest the seat because of its growing support base and organizational strength. Like in Balasore, the BJP is highly expected to loose this one too.
The Biju Janata Dal has deputed many senior party leaders to campaign at Dhamnagar. Party Organisational Secretary Pranab Prakash Das has been on the ground monitoring the campaign. Senior party leaders are campaigning door to door with the candidate Abanti Das. The party’s youth, women and other wings are also leaving no stone unturned to garner the support of the electors. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who leads the party’s star campaigner list, is likely to campaign for the Part candidate virtually on October 30th.