It’s Pipili Fight

Bhubaneswar (Surjit Kumar Dhal): The by-poll to Pipili Assembly seat is necessitated after the demise of former BJD MLA Pradeep Maharathy. He passed away while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Bhubaneswar on October 4 last year. The ruling Biju Janata Dal fielded Rudra Pratap Maharathy as its candidate for the bypoll scheduled to be held on April 17. Rudra Pratap is the son of late Pradeep Maharathy. The Saffron party has repeated Ashrit Pattnayak who was narrowly defeated in 2019 as its candidate for the by-elections whereas the Congress party named Ajit Mangaraj as party candidate for the by poll. Mangaraj unsuccessfully contested on Congress ticket from Pipili Assembly seat during 2019 general election.

In a dramatic move, the Maharathy family kept them away from media after the declaration of BJD ticket to Rudra. According to sources Pradeep’s daughter and son-in-law wanted party ticket. Pradeep’s wife Prativa also intended to contest, because she is very popular in the constituency. At last all the members of Maharathy family issued a video in support of Rudra and cleared the unwanted atmosphere. In another flimsy incident, a huge lobby was made for lady IAS and Wife of 5T Secretary Sujata Pandian, but in vain.

As few days left for the ensuing Pipili by-poll, the ruling BJD is all geared up to retain its traditional stronghold with a massive victory. As part of strategies, Supremo Naveen Patnaik has assigned several party leaders, including Sameer Ranjan Dash the charge of blocks, Panchatyats and NAC. Samir and Atanu Sabyasachi have been given the charge to supervise the electioneering process in Pipili block whereas Naba Das and Susanta Singh along with Bibhuti Balabantaray are in charge of Delang block. Besides, Sudhir Kumar Samal has been given the charge of Pipili NAC. Earlier, the party chief had appointed four senior leaders– party vice-president Debi Prasad Mishra, Pipili by-poll observer Pratap Deb, Sanjay Das Burma and Maheswar Mohanty– to chalk out strategies for the by-poll.

For the BJP, Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Chandra Sarangi are among the 30 star campaigners for the Pipili by-election. Other star campaigners include Samir Mohanty, Baijayanta Jay Panda, D Purendeswari, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar, Bisweswar Tudu, Pradipta Kumar Naik, Jual Oram,  KV Singh Deo, Manmohan samal, Suresh Pujari, Basanta Kumar Panda, Bijay Mohapatra, Bishnu Charan Sethi, Sambit Patra , Aparajita Sarangi, Jayanarayan Mishra, Surama Padhy, Kharavela Swain, Ashwini Vaishnab, Prakash Mishra, Manas Kumar Mohanty, Prithiviraj Harichandan, Golak Prasad Mohapatra, Lekhasri Samantsinhar, Sritam Das, Harihar Mohapatra, Pinky Pradhan and Anu Chaudhury.

Let us see who will win on second May.