TNI Bureau: After the debacle in Dhamnagar, the ruling BJD has swung into action by shifting the entire focus to Padampur, which will go to polls on December 5. After the failure of youth and student leaders, the senior leaders have been given the responsibility to retain Padampur where BJD’s reputation is at stake.
Prasanna Acharya and Susanta Singh will strategise the Padampur Bypoll campaign while Niranjan Pujari, Naba Das, Rajendra Dholakia, Tukuni Sahu, Debesh Acharya, Snehangini Chhuria, Rita Sahu, Saroj Meher and Puspendra Singhdeo will lead the campaign at the grassroots level.
All hotels in Padampur have been booked and BJD is deploying its teams soon after Kartik Purnima and fight the poll with a war room strategy. BJD’s Chief Strategist Pranab Prakash Das is visiting Padampur to formulate a full-proof strategy to win the seat. He is under tremendous pressure after the Dhamnagar defeat.
On the other hand, BJP is confident about Padampur as its probable candidate Pradip Purohit has been in touch with the people since the defeat in 2019 while Late MLA Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha could not perform due to illness.
Pradip Purohit had won the Padampur seat by 4513 votes in 2014, but lost in 2019 by a margin of 5734 votes.
In 2019, 201,729 voters cast their votes. Bijaya Ranjan Singh Bariha had secured 83,299 votes while Pradip Purohit got 77,565 votes. All eyes will be on Congress which secured 32,787 votes or 16.25% votes. These votes will determine the winner in Padampur.
BJP’s Odisha In-Charge Sunil Bansal along with other In-Charge D Purandeswari will visit the state soon to form a strategy for Padampur Bypoll. Senior leaders Jayanarayan Mishra, Suresh Pujari and Basant Panda will lead the campaign there.