Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s accute submission to super-chiefministership of his Secretary Sri Pandian has provoked many of the thinking minds of Dhamnagar to reject his party candidate in this bye-election.
Many-a-people have rejected his virtual vote-begging for his candidate, which has helped the BJP in retaining the seat.
The embarassed camp wants outsiders to believe that sympathy wave in favor of the son of the deceased MLA of BJP helped it win. But there was no discernible sympathy wave. Voters consciously casted their ballots.
There was, in the BJD camp, bizarre reaction against giving the elbow to the Party’s promising candidate to plant a lady who has visible alligiance to Mission Shakti Chief Mrs Pandian.
Mr. Pandian, who despite being an IAS officer, politically controls the BJD party, had made Dhamnagar a laboratory to test how far a member of the self-help-group of the Mission Shakti network would succeed in catching the votes, as a part of a strategy for election 2024, which, had the design clicked, would have paved the path to give majority of the party tickets to the women of Mission Shakti artery, which could have ultimately helped Mrs Pandian to claim leadership of the ruling party with habitual sycophants acquiescing into the new reality.
This is why the bye-election in Dhamnagar was significant.