Bhubaneswar: The Biju Janata Dal winning the Patkura assembly seat is not as significant for the party as it was well known that the wind is blowing the BJD way. But for Bijoy Mahapatra, the 68 year senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, it seems to be the end of road for his political ambitions. In other words, we can say the defeat has put a full stop on his political career.
The man, who was once considered a Chanakya in Odisha politics, could not turn the table in his favour for the last 19 years. Ever since he became unrelated with the Biju Janata Dal, he has witnessed only defeat and rejection by the people of Odisha.
Today’s Patkura election results came as a rude shock for the senior leader as he had expected a smooth sail which would have helped him in his come back to the state politics. But, the people of Patkura have chosen to be with the most popular leader of the state Naveen Patnaik through Sabitri Agarwalla.
Veteran Bijoy Mahapatra was defeated by Sabitri Agarwalla with a huge margin of more than 17 thousand votes. What is more interesting is the places which were thought to be the strongholds for Bijay came out negative. In almost all blocks of Patkura that went for elections, the voters rejected Bijoy and elected Sabitri.
Bijoy, who had been a legislator from Patkura for four times, has been losing continuously since the year 2000. His dilly dallying with various political parties and the recent joining hands with the BJP has not gone well with the people. His ambitions to take on Naveen Patnaik have boomeranged.
The BJP too wanted to use Bijoy to counter the popularity of the Chief Minister. Now it seems that after today’s results, Bijoy’s political career has come to an end and he may not hold the steam till 2014 elections.
According to a political analyst who did not want to be named, “This is going to be the end of road for Bojoy Mahapatra in Odisha politics. The BJP too may not give him a chance again.
The vote margin shows that he has been shown the door by the people of the constituency. Also the popularity of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik worked in favour of BJD.”